The FIVB Men’s World Cup in Japan is going to be an interesting tournament for Russia.
As we all know, Muserskiy and Team struggled at the World League and only managed to win 1/11 matches. Sadly, they finished the tourney at 7th. The unfortunate result let to the expulsion of the head coach and Coach Alekno getting rehired.
Fast forward to today, Russia looks somewhat a different team. A stronger team to be more specific.
Coach Alekno has recently revealed his roster for the upcoming World Cup. Leading the squad is the 39 year old Sergey Tetyukhin and he will be joined by his 2012 Olympic gold medal teammates Muserskiy, Grankin, Butko, Mikhaylov, Obmochaev and Ilinykh.
Full Roster:
Outside Hitters:
Sergey Tetyukhin
Aleksey Spiridonov
Dmitriy Ilinykh
Evgeniy Sivozhelez
Setters:
Aleksandar Butko
Sergey Grankin
Opposite Hitters:
Maxim Mikhaylov
Viktor Poletaev
Middle Blockers:
Dmitriy Muserskiy
Artyem Volvich
Ilyas Kurkaev
Iliya Vlasov
Liberos:
Aleksey Obmochaev
Aleksandar Yanutov
With this team, Russia is one of the top favorites to finish in the TOP 2 and win a ticket for the 2016 Olympics.
(images: FIVB)