Dinamo Kazan secured their 18th Russian championship this week from the final batch of matches in their championship.
They carried a 10-point lead into this week’s series of four games at their home stadium at the Central Art Theatre and Araik Margaryan’s men started off their week with a 9-0 win over St Petersburg’s SPb-UOR.
They followed up with a 5-2 success against Tana Azov with Pavel Golubev netting twice with further goals from Semyon Matkovsky and Alexey Sobolevsky.
It gave them a unbreakable buffer when they went into Sunday’s game against nearest rivals Dinamo Elektrostal who did inflict a defeat on Kazan 2-1 with Nikolay Yankun’s strike outdone by goals from Zakhar Zaitsev and Marat Khairullin.
Monday saw the final game of the season which saw Dinamo Stroitel – from Yekaterineburg – also take the points from Kazan on a 1-0 scoreline, helping them to secure third place in the table; Artem Nadyshin getting the only goal.
But the result was purely academic for Kazan who had a comfortable lead following a blistering start to the truncated championship and they got to celebrate their success on their home field. Yankun was named best midfielder of the tournament while Golubev got the best gong with Margaryan getting the coach award.
“Dear athletes, coaches and fans, I sincerely congratulate you on the successful completion of the field hockey competition! Despite the epidemiological situation, the players showed a beautiful game and will to win.
“I would like to wish our athletes good health and new successes! I have no doubt that the new season will be even more spectacular,” said Khalil Shaikhutdinov, the first deputy minister of sports for the Republic of Tartarstan, toasting their success.