Stuttgart, Germany, November 11, 2015. What a premiere! On Wednesday night Germany’s Allianz MTV STUTTGART hosted their first Champions League home game in their short club’s history. As they were passionately cheered on by 1,422 spectators and fans in the SCHARRena – the unique Volleyball sports hall set up underneath the seating area of the Mercedes-Benz-Arena which is home to the soccer Bundesliga team VfB Stuttgart – the team of Spanish-born coach Guillermo Naranjo Hernández was honoured to compete with the five-times-in-a-row Russian champions Dinamo KAZAN, who had topped the charts of Europe’s elite competition in 2014.

The Russian visitors showed the quality and strength of the world-class players included on their roster cruising to a 3:0 victory (25-17, 25-20, 25-22) in 82 minutes – but a small budget doesn’t affect the team spirit of the local side. And it is especially the second set that sets a benchmark in this sense: Allianz MTV STUTTGART had a late start and fell back 4:14 just to fight itself back into the game, with the help of young players such as Michaela Mlejnkova and Jelena Wlk. At 14:19 Dinamo KAZAN mentor Rishat Gilyazutdinov even had to take a time-out to set things straight.

The fighting spirit of STUTTGART was even more impressive, considering the fact that their main outside spiker, Hungary’s Volleyball star Renata Sandor, got injured during a spectacular attempt to keep the ball in play at 11:12 in the first set – and couldn’t perform anymore.

The coach of Dinamo KAZAN, Rishat Gilyazutdinov, said after the game: “The first set was very good. I never felt like we could lose this game. However, in the second set our reception got a lot worse, and we could not perform at our level. In general I liked the quality of our serve. And as for Stuttgart, the hall, the atmosphere, everything was very good.”

The star spiker of Dinamo KAZAN Elitsa Vasileva said: “We take home three points and this is what we wanted to achieve. I am happy with this and I would like to take the local mascot Charly the Bear back home with me,” she joked.

Home mentor Guillermo Naranjo Hernández said: “Our game wasn‘t bad, and we showed that we can fight at this level. Too bad, we now have Renata with an injury. But this is the price you have to pay at this level.”

The opposite player of the home team, Kaja Grobelna from Belgium, said: “With a better serve I think we could have made it to win one set. Unfortunately we made a way too many mistakes.”

Champions League. Pool A. 1nd Leg.
Allianz MTV (STUTTGART, Germany) – Dinamo (KAZAN, Russia) – 0:3 (17:25, 20:25, 22:25)
11th November. Germany. Stuttgart. SHARRena Stuttgart.
Referee: McDugall B. (Scotland). Time match: 1.20 (26+26+28).
Allianz: Stoltenborg (1), Tomazela (3), Renkema (6), Sandor (3), Grobelna (9), Lindow (2) – start six, Robinson (libero), Wlk (7), Nichol, Jarmoc (3), Van Daelen (2), Mlejnkova (2).
Dinamo: Borodakova – C (3), Gendel (10), Startseva (2), Del Core (9), Vasileva (16), Stolyarova (14) – start six, Ezhova (libero), Malkova, Melnikova.
Points – 59:75, serve – 2:3, attack – 33:36, block – 3:15, reception – 48%:55%, error – 22:18.