KOS-Sintez scored two convincing victories in the EVL championship final

7:1: Kazan's rout in the first period

The Kazan team killed any hopes of success for their opponents right at the start of the game. In the first period, goals were scored by Artyom Odintsov, Ivan Vasilyev, Nikolai Lazarev, and Adel Latypov, who scored a brace. KOS's water polo players brilliantly capitalized on their power plays, and Volgograd's coaching staff could come up with no answer. Even after calling a timeout following Lazarev's goal, Spartak conceded another goal, this time from Latypov.

“Spartak Volgograd — forward to victory!” was written in white letters on a red background on a motivational poster. It was put up by three girls, all dressed in red, the classic color of the Spartak club, whose colors are red and white. But this poster was less motivating than the desire of Roman Usov, a product of the Kazan club now playing for Volgograd, to remind everyone of himself. With 2 minutes left in the half, he made the score 1:5, but then Lazarev scored a brace with a powerful shot, and Egor Yarlychenko scored after a breakaway to make it 7:1.

Talking about any sort of competition after such a score was quite difficult, especially since Kazan also won the second period 4:2, extending the overall score to 11:3. In the third period, there were two memorable goals from water polo players with large back tattoos. First, a beautiful goal from Lisunov, then an even more beautiful one from Konstantin Sheikin to make it 14:7. Volgograd replaced goalkeeper Pyotr Fedotov with Valery Burov, but Kazan's Adel Latypov scored against him as well. In total, he had 6 goals, and the same advantage for Kazan sealed the final score of the game, 18:12.

Kazan started the second match at minus 2

The second match between the finalists began completely differently. For three minutes, Evgeny Kostrov was putting out fires in his team's defense, because not everything was right there at the start. A penalty, a power-play, and finally a breakaway by Timur Shaikhutdinov allowed the visitors to open the scoring, after which Volgograd, through Roman Usov, capitalized on an exclusion. The danger of back-to-back games is that a goal-scoring frenzy can happen on one of the two days of the confrontation, while the second game can be “dry.” In the end, Kazan managed to score against Volgograd goalkeeper Valery Burov only from the penalty spot, converted by Ivan Vasilyev. Karabutov initially disagreed with the call and “burned” his VAR review right.

Fortunately for Kazan, Adel Latypov was on the team, and he was not satisfied with six goals in the first game; he increased his tally, scoring to make it 2:2. Latypov's surge was supported by his teammates, and at the start of the second period, Kazan continued their run. Four goals from Konstantin Kiselev, Nikita Derevyankin, Sergei Lisunov, and Daniil Pronin made everyone forget about the poor start to the match, making it 6:2. Who are the champions? Those who know how to turn the course of a match in their favor. Kostrov would have gone into the big break with a pleasant zero in the goals-against column for the period, but Roman Usov categorically disagreed, making it 6:3.

By the way, one could find opinions online that “half of Volgograd is currently playing for Kazan.” Without being unfounded, the current KOS-Sintez roster includes three products of the Volgograd water polo school — Konstantin Kiselev, Nikolai Lazarev, and Sergei Lisunov. In turn, Volgograd's roster includes three former Kazan players — Sergei Bulanaev, Roman Usov, and Timur Shaikhutdinov. And in the first half of the second meeting, only the ex-Sintez players scored for Volgograd.

So in this respect, there is parity among the finalists. But as for the fact that Kazan players are an order of magnitude more numerous on other Super League teams, the course of the first match for bronze medals at least proved it. In Astrakhan, the local Dynamo lost to St. Petersburg's Baltika 10:12, and the winners' hat-trick was scored by Sintez school graduates Sergei Belyansky and Askar Makhiyanov. In the second game, Astrakhan left no stone unturned against Baltika, winning 10:4.

At the start of the third period, Kazan extended their lead. Nikita Derevyankin scored as the shot clock was expiring, and it was the second time in a row he had done so. The referees disallowed one goal, ruling that the shot clock had already expired, but counted Nikita's goal as legitimate. The response to it was a goal by Timur Shaikhutdinov, after which another ex-Sintez player, Bulanaev, scored for Volgograd, making the score 8:6.

At the end of the match, four Kazan players were excluded at once

At the start of the fourth period, spectators witnessed a rare occurrence — a contested ball, because water polo players from both teams reached the ball at the same speed, after which the referee put the ball into play by tossing it up, as is done in basketball. Water polo fans could say, “Now we've seen everything!”

Alas, Ivan Vasilyev lost the ball to an opponent and then was excluded himself, followed by Lisunov, for whom this was the third exclusion, forcing him to leave the pool, as Roman Shepelev had done earlier. There were 8 minutes left to play without two key players — that's tough.

Fortunately for Kazan, they had a three-goal handicap at 11:8, but with that score, Artyom Odintsov was also excluded. Then Konstantin Kiselev was excluded as well. On Kazan's bench, only two substitute players remained, but fortunately, on that evening, Adel Latypov scored at crucial moments, and Kostrov and his partners defended brilliantly. In the time remaining before the final buzzer, only Kazan's Arslan Zakirov scored, setting the final score of the game at 14:9.

Now Yaroshchuk's team and Spartak's head coach Karabutov will play in Volgograd in a best-of-three series. We need only one more win to become champions.

Forty years ago, Zinnurov and Karabutov played on the same team

Let us recall the 1986 USSR Spartakiad and the related events and anniversaries. That year, the Moscow team won, with future Sintez player Dmitry Gorshkov; third place went to the Kazakh SSR team, fourth to the Ukrainian SSR, which also included future Sintez players Sergei Drozdov and Andrey Belofastov. And fifth place was won by the RSFSR team, today's Russia, composed of products of Volgograd and Kazan water polo. The Sintez players were Vladimirov, Gorbach, Tolstakov, Ukhov, and I. Zintsurov (the surname of the current president of the Sintez Sports Club, Irek Khaidarovich Zinnurov, was preserved in this form in sports reference books), representing SK MP, that is, the Ministry of Education. Another future Sintez player, Eduard Terela, who at that time represented his hometown of Voronezh, and a number of Volgograd Spartak players, including Shaidakov and the current team coach Vladimir Karabutov. The Russians beat the team of the Azerbaijani SSR, composed of KKF water polo players, and a quartet of them — Vartanov, Kotanchyan, Martirosov, Tsatryan — were ethnic Armenians. A year later, in 1987, events began in Nagorno-Karabakh, and it became impossible to imagine Armenians in the Azerbaijani team (and vice versa). The only thing: Zinnurov's surname was never mangled again.

Among the coaches of that team was Valery Lelyukh, a legendary figure in Russian water polo, who was completing his career. Even among the current finalist rosters, there are his pupils — Sergei Bulanaev in Volgograd and Igor Chirkov with Emil Zinnurov in Kazan. Having worked successfully with the father, he then brought his son into big-time sports. Valery Alekseevich's 50-plus years of work at Sintez are akin to the length of a golden wedding anniversary.