The head coach of the youth team of Russia Olga Akopyan commented on the choice of the squad for the upcoming training session in China.
— The current squad is a little different from the previous one. At the last moment we had to repack the left back Maria Platonova for medical reasons. Instead, Varvara Semina, who spent last training session in the main national team, joined us. We made a decision to invite her to the trip to China, taking into consideration the fact, that it is her national team regarding her age. We are sure, that the trip with the national team to away games in Asia will be a good experience for her.
Last year the team already visited China in my absence, but under the guidance of Roman Lyashenko. The first game day turned out to be more difficult, the acclimatization clearly had an impact — everything was unfamiliar, there was excitement. We set ourselves clear objectives ahead of the future visit. The national team of China sent us their timetable, we also shared ours. They plan joint workouts with us practically every day. It can be explained by the fact that their team is preparing for the World Cup, it will be a plus for them. Of course, we are ready to share experience and hold joint exercises, but we primarily solve our tasks and focus on ourselves. But we are ready to participate in joint projects.
We want to see, how girls will interact with each other after vacation. They have already started to prepare for the next season. At the same time many of them are involved in the Beach Handball Championship of Russia. We plan to look at the overall team state. Our coaching staff would like to focus to a larger extent on the defense and also add the team’s switch on the counterattack. It is possible that we will change some of goals during the games, in case other problems appear, — the official HFR web site quotes Olga Akopyan.
Photo: vk.com/rh
