The general director of the Dinamo Women's volleyball club (Moscow), Vladimir Zinichev, in an interview with «VseProSport», announced that the club had signed a new contract with diagonal Natalia Goncharova.
Goncharova joined Dinamo in 2006 and has consistently played for the capital club. At the end of the 2024/25 season, it was reported that the volleyball player had not extended her contract with Dinamo and was looking for a new team.
- Vladimir Alexandrovich, how would you rate Dynamo's performance at the preliminary stage of the Victory Cup?
- I must say right away that the micromarathon of 6 games in 7 days that took place in Kaliningrad at the very beginning of the season cannot objectively answer all questions about the team. It so happened that the participants of our group A held both rounds of the preliminary stage at once without a break, giving the players an unusual workload for our competitions, which, of course, is not very good for the start of the season, after "addictive" training camps and only a few friendly sparring sessions. But, thank God, there were no injuries and we managed to complete the main task - reaching the finals of the tournament. But I think that the coaching staff, nevertheless, has something to reflect on, especially the last match with teammates from Krasnodar.
- You said there were no injuries. Nevertheless, does Dynamo already have losses in the squad?
- Yes, unfortunately, Lera Shevchuk has been out for a long time. In early August, just three weeks after the team returned from a two-and-a-half-month vacation and the start of the first training camp, she was called up to the Russian national team to prepare and participate in two friendly matches with the national team of Belarus. In the very first game in Minsk, she was seriously injured. To be honest, I can't calmly talk about the situation with Shevchuk. Firstly, the timing of these games, in my opinion, takes players out of the normal planned physical training, forcing it, because the coaches of the national team, inviting new players to the team, want to see exactly their playing opportunities.
Well, maybe someone will disagree with my opinion, but any normal person will agree with my indignation about what happened next to national team player Valeria Shevchuk, who was injured on August 16 in a match with the national team of our country in front of numerous Russian television fans. I will not expand on this topic for a long time, but the athlete has not yet undergone surgery and this is a direct result of the fulfillment, or rather, non-fulfillment, of their direct duties by the doctors of the Russian national team. Last week, I addressed a letter to the President of the World Sports Federation about the inadmissibility of such an attitude towards athletes called up by the federation under the flag of the national team. I hope he will pay attention to this case, although I have not yet received a response to my letter.
As for Lera, with our active assistance, she is going to the clinic today to perform this operation on a commercial basis. I believe that our federation will not stand aside and will participate with us in compensating the athlete for her health restoration costs. And I wish Lera to have a successful operation and return to the ranks.
- Shevchuk is out for a long time. Will the club be looking for a replacement for her?
- Unfortunately, according to the most optimistic forecasts, Lera was out for six months. Unfortunately, as our fans know, last season, due to injuries, illnesses and other reasons that prevented our players from fulfilling their contractual obligations, we had big problems with the finishers. We urgently invited a Chinese woman, who was also unable to finish the season due to injury, and invited Alina Popova from the French Volero in the middle of the season. In general, they tried to patch up the gaps in the composition, but, as it turned out, they were not particularly successful.
Now we have decided to act differently, in a sense asymmetrically. And not because it's already difficult to find a player with a stable reception instead of Shevchuk, which is exactly the case, but because we have an inner conviction that a different decision is right. This morning I signed a contract for the upcoming season with Natalia Goncharova, she signed it late last night. We also made a joint decision to continue our cooperation with Natasha's agent, Boyan Simurina, last night. Thus, Goncharova will spend her 20th season at our club.
- Who will be the captain of the team now? Who will be the main diagonal?
- We already have a team captain this season, this is Anna Podkopayeva. We presented it at the pre-season press conference and will not change anything. I don't think it's important. Goncharova will be able to show her leadership qualities even without a "dash" under the game number on her uniform, and she has a lot of authority in the volleyball world.
As for the question of who is the first and who is not the first, I am sure that our head coach, by the way, the decision to sign Goncharova was made with his direct participation, will create healthy competition in the team, without any indulgences and preferences. By the way, I also told Natasha about all this. I hope this decision will make our team stronger, more stable and will allow us to achieve the main thing in our work through all the inevitable difficulties and lapping," Zinichev replied.
