Disgrace of the Polish team in the Champions League! Third time in a row. Great shame

Two years ago, there was a disgrace in Portugal, due to which the then did not even make contact in the fight for promotion from the group stage. A year ago, the unlucky loss of the tie-break with Kuzbass Kemerovo in bizarre circumstances and the lack of promotion to the quarter-finals by four small points. And now two defeats with the weaker on paper, but much better on the pitch, Ziraat Bankasi Ankara.

This is a list of volleyball disasters. And a list of shame, because in each of these situations there were great announcements, hopes for a further game in Europe and a disastrous ending to the story marked by failure.

The disaster of the Warsaw Project. A painful failure in Ankara. Another defeat in the Champions League is getting closer

This is no longer funny. On Tuesday, Projekt Warszawa played a match for life in this year’s CEV Champions League. He had to win, preferably by three points, to really count in the fight for promotion to the quarter-finals. Before the game, he was third in the group table with only one point after two games. The group winner and the top three teams from runners-up will advance to the next phase. Failure meant that they would only have a mathematical chance of getting out of the group.

And now, in fact, they can only handle calculators. Or admit that for the third consecutive season, they gave up the fight for their chance to appear in Europe and disastrously missed it. They can be explained by recent problems with coronavirus infections, problems with a very long trip to (snow covered local airports, which made reaching Ankara longer for Warsaw residents by a few hours – ed.), Or staff shortages during training and matches recently. However, the thing is that their rivals on Monday also did not know in what line-up they will join the meeting. It turned out that it was full, but they had no time to play at all.

They didn’t care. They played a great match and although they were not a favorite on paper, they defeated Projekt for the second time. In Warsaw, the Turks surprised them by winning four sets, and they did the same at home – they won 3: 1 (25:17, 17:25, 25:18, 25:18). They had a moment of weakness only in the second game, and although Projekt was able to take advantage of their weaknesses at the time, it did not maintain its level of play by itself, made easy mistakes and was tricked.

The project must count on a miracle. It’s almost impossible to leave the group

It’s not worth making excuses. The situation of the Project is catastrophic because they have worked for it themselves. Where did the unexpected failure in Warsaw come from? Why did Turkey lack the will to fight? Why, when it was a defeat, the circumstances were more important than the result itself: judges’ mistakes, an epidemic, or injuries that affect everyone similarly? Now the Warsaw players are practically out of the Champions League, although they have one more match to play than their rivals from Ankara, or (due to the postponement of the home match with Greenyard Maaseik and its February in Belgium – ed.).

Table B of the volleyball Champions League after Ziraatu’s match with Projekt:

1. Ziraat Bankasi Ankara – 4 matches – 3 wins – 9 points – 9: 5 sets
2. Dynamo Moscow – 3 matches – 3 wins – 8 points – 9: 2 sets
3. Projekt Warszawa – 3 matches – 0 wins – 1 point – 4: 9 sets
4. Greenyard Maaseik – 2 matches – 0 won – 0 points – 0: 6 sets

If they want to keep a chance to advance to the quarter-finals, they would have to win all three games by the end of the competition and hope that Ziraat or Dynamo will lose their other games. Then they would have three wins (they are the first criterion for deciding the order of the teams, followed by the number of points, a higher set ratio, a higher ratio of small points and finally direct matches – note) and ten points, and the Turks or the Russians would remain with three wins and nine or eight points, respectively. The rivals would be out of the competition. However, it is also important to remember that Dynamo has only played three games so far, with the fourth on Wednesday against the last team from Group B, Greenyard Maaseik. If they win, Projekt will lose their chances of overtaking the Russians in the table, because they will already have four wins and eleven points.

Even in the case of the second place in the group B table, not everything would depend on the Project. They would have had to count on the third-best second-placed team not to exceed three wins and ten points. In short: that it will not overtake them. Already at this point, with three games played for the four best runners-up teams, the third of them won two matches and scored six points. A has three more games ahead of him, so he could have up to five wins and fifteen points.

It seems that everything can be decided already in the fourth round of the Champions League group stage matches. The project will then play against the strongest in the group, Dynamo Moscow at home. The meeting is scheduled for February 9 at 20:30 in Torwar in Warsaw and any result other than a three-point win will deprive Warsaw players of any chance for promotion. Anyway, the day before Ziraat Bankasi Ankara will play against Greenyard Maaseik. Even if the Turks won, the Project’s chances of advancement would be lost if Ziraat and Dynamo Moscow had four wins each. This is a very likely scenario.

The project was to be the pride of Warsaw. This is the third time in a row that you have to be ashamed of him

Worst of all is the style in which Projekt has lost all arguments in the Champions League. – We are interested in following in the footsteps of ZAKSA Kędzierzyn-Koźle and conquering the European market – said Piotr Gacek, the sports director and vice-president of the management board of Projekt Warszawa at the beginning of the PlusLiga season. – It is my dream as a former player to appear in the Champions League. I would like this team and the capital of Poland, Warsaw, to stand on their feet in these competitions – assured the activist. We can already say today that these ambitions will remain rather his unfulfilled desire. And for how they were wasted, fans and residents of Warsaw will only be ashamed.

The Warsaw club has been making such announcements for three years. In the 2019/2020 season, he lost to Benfica Lisbon 1: 3, placing a reserve squad in Portugal and already in the second round he buried his chances of leaving the group, in which there were still strong teams of Tours VB and Sir Safety Perugia led by, already with Wilfredo Leon in the squad. In the last edition of the Champions League, there were four small points short of promotion. Yes, not points in the table, not won sets, but four small points that would improve the ratio of Varsovians, which would decide whether they would take first place in the group against Leo Shoes Modena. The Italians handed them this promotion on the golden tray, losing their last match of the group stage, but the Polish team did not take advantage of this gift. He lost 2: 3 in the tie-break with Russian Kuzbass Kemerovo, who ultimately did not get anything from this victory. .

Changes in Warsaw? Anastasi is about to leave because he has failed again. Everything in the hands of the club’s management

The one from 2022 can be added to these two compromising disasters with a pencil. In a few days, Dynamo Moscow, as in the school diary, will correct this entry with a pen. You will be able to ask about drawing conclusions and possible staff movements after such a disgrace. Though it might not be needed? In recent days, “La Gazzetta dello Sport” announced that the coach of the Varsovians, after the season, is to leave the capital and move to Asseco Resovia Rzeszów. Of course, there is no need to look for any confirmation of this information, but no one would be surprised to get rid of the Italian from the position of Project coach. Once again, he failed, as did the entire team. It is hard to believe that Anastasi will change in the fourth season. He often made bad decisions or held back bold moves that would help spark a bad match. He did not seem to care about the competition in which he would fight for the great success of his club.

Even a promotion from a group in which Projekt was not doomed to failure could be considered as such. He himself, with the help of Anastasi, chose such a path. And it is only up to the club’s management whether they will continue to follow it in the future and hope that the Italian will finally turn to the right one, or try to make changes and stop failing the fans and themselves. How many more can you endure wasting your chances in such a nasty way?