Verbov is not sure that he will be able to interrupt Alekno’s achievements as a coach of Zenit

The head coach of the Kazan volleyball club “Zenit” Alexei Verbov said that he does not set himself the goal of interrupting the achievements of Vladimir Alekno in this position.

Alekno headed Zenit from 2008 to 2021. Kazan under his leadership became the champions of Russia nine times, won the Russian Cup six times, won the Champions League five times and won the World Club Championship once.

– It’s definitely not an end in itself. It will be difficult for anyone to repeat this. To be honest, I’m definitely not chasing competition anymore. It’s a crazy load, work. I just take my hat off to such people as Vladimir Alekno, Nikolai Karpol, Gennady Shipulin, who put a lot of energy and health into the teams they worked with. Karpol continues to this day, I heard that he got into the Guinness Book of Records. I think this is a unique result. Not even by the number of titles, but by the time and energy that he spent.

Knowing myself, I’m not sure that it will turn out to work for so long and such an amount of time. Now I enjoy my work, I want to develop. This is exactly what I was going for, striving for. But I don’t know how long this enthusiasm will last. As a player, for example, realized that he had stopped, it stopped being interesting to me. I had offers with good contracts, I could still play at Zenit, and I think I could get to the Tokyo Olympics. But already stopped in this regard. So I would like to thank Vladimir Romanovich and the management for the opportunity that they gave me a chance to fulfill my dream – the next one after my playing career.

I am not talking about the 50 years of Nikolai Karpol at all. Even 10 years is a huge period with the energy expended and the forces that you, as a teacher, give to the children and everyone around you. Not sure if it will take that long. It may not be enough,” Verbov told the “Championship”.