A fortress and a shooter

Their home arena is a real fortress: Last season only later-on EHF Champions League winner Viborg HK managed to steal two points from Dinamo Volgograd.

The Russian champion is a class of its own on home soil, but somehow can’t play that effective in their away matches.

Last season Dinamo reached the Main Round, and from their seven points they earned six in Volgograd but only one point on the road.

The biggest success they ever achieved in the EHF Women’s Champions League was reaching the semi ten years ago, when they lost to Kometal Skopje. The biggest international success was winning the EHF Cup in 2008.

Last season the team successfully continued their winning spree in the domestic league by beating Zvezda Zvenigorod in the finals again, like in 2009. As their squad remained almost the same, the Russian go heads held high into their eleventh CL season.

But the upcoming season looks like quite some work by looking at their strong opponents in Group A. They will meet the EHF Cup title holder Buducnost Podgorica (MNE), EHF Champions League title holder Viborg HK (DEN) and Sävehof IK (SWE) who did not lose one single game in the two-phased qualification.

So the club decided to not talk about international aims but only set an official goal for the domestic league. Dinamo is this year focussing on their third consecutive title in the land of the current World Champion.

And Volgograd relies almost 100% on Russian players; it doesn’t come as a surprise that their only newcomer is Russian, too. Ekaterina Yatsenko is being brought back home from the French club Brest.

But Dinamo face a challenge as they have to replace their experienced goalkeeper Tatiana Alizar, who went to Itxako in Spain. Eugenia Rvacheva left Volgograd to Astrakhan.

Top stars of the team are Tatina Khmyrova, women’s World Champion and Silver medallist and all star team member at the Juniors WCH in Korea, and last season’s top scorer Anna Kochetova, who hit the back of the net 84 times in twelve EHF Champions League matches.

Key facts

Newcomers: Ekaterina Yatsenko (from Arvor 29 – Pays de Brest)

Left the club: Tatiana Alizar (to Itxako Reyno De Navarra), Eugenia Rvacheva (to Astrachanochka Astrakhan)

Coach: Victor Ryabykh (RUS)

Find more info here.