2006 🇩🇪 Germany vs Russia 🇷🇺🏐 Women Volleyball 🏐 BCV Montreux Volley Masters

2006 was the World Championship Year. Many teams used 2005 to test and train new players to find their best lineup in order to prepare for this important tournament held near the year end. Montreux was before World Grand Prix and good opportunity to observe opponents and warmup.
Post-Match Commentary :
China, Cuba, Germany and Russia assigned the same pool while top 2 rank teams will play against top 2 in other pool (Brazil, Italy, Japan and Poland) for semi-final.
This was Day 3 first match. Both team lost all games in previous days. Germany did some good job in 2002-4. But their world ranking dropped to #16 in 2005. New coach - Giovanni Guidetti was appointed. New players included #16 Margareta Kozuch (20yo, 1.87m), #2 Kathleen Weiß (22yo, 1.71m) etc. #15 Angelina Grün (26yo, 1.85m) didn't play in World Grand Prix 2005 and returned in this tournament. She was definitely the key player of Germany during 2000-2010. For Russia, the legendary coach Nikolay Kapol stepped down from the headcoach. The new coach was Italian but his wife was famous ex-Russian 2nd pass - Irina Kirillova who acted as assistant coach. This sqaud without Artamonova, Sokolova, Godina & Gamova. The only players played in World Championship was #9 Kryuchkova (21yo, 1.75m) & #18 Akulova (21yo, 1.81m). When I thought Russia golden era was finally over, they got gold medal in 2006 World Championship by beat down Brazil in final match. Nothing is impossible after Cuba dynasty was over.