The French men's volleyball team has made great strides since the mid-2010s. While the "outcast" Nugapet and the little "maestro" Toniutti tend to get the most attention, let's not forget this man: Zheniya Grebennikov. He is the "guardian angel" of the team and is also known as the world's best libero.
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Jenia Grebnnikov
Born August 13, 1990 (29 years old)
From Rennes, France
Height: 188cm
Weight: 74kg
Highest point reached: 340cm
Position: Libero
Uniform number: 2 (representative)
Club
2008-13 Rennes
2013-15 Friedrichshafen (Germany)
2015-18 Roubaix (Italy)
2018-20 Trento (Italy)
2020- Modena (Italy)
Representative career
2011-
Success in the French league and debut for the national team
Zhenia, whose father is a former Russian volleyball player, has been playing volleyball since she was a child under her father's guidance. Originally an attacker, she switched to libero at the age of 16 due to lack of height and power. Since she loved attacking (she still spikes every time during warm-ups, and she's sharp), she struggled at first with this new position, but she gradually began to show her talent, including being selected for the French U21 national team.
In the 2010/11 season, while playing for his hometown team Rennes, where his father was the manager, he won the French League Best Libero award. In recognition of his performance, he was selected for the senior national team for the first time in 2011, taking over from former famous libero Eno (with the same number 2 jersey as Eno). Since that year's World League, he has played as the starting libero in almost all games. In the following 2011/12 season, he won his first title with Rennes in the French Cup. In addition to being selected as the Best Libero, he was also selected as the league's MVP that year. However, he missed out on the London Olympics qualifiers after losing to Bulgaria, which had Kaziyski and Sokolov on their team.
Transfers to foreign leagues and the rise of the French national team
From the 2013/14 season, he transferred to the prestigious German club Friedrichshafen. During his two seasons there, the team won the German Cup twice in a row, and also achieved good results in the league, coming in second in his first year and winning the championship in his second year. Incidentally, in his second year, France national team setter Toniutti was also on the same team.
Grebennikov made progress at his club level, but the years 2014 and 2015 were also a period of great progress for the French national team. First, in 2014, he went from 13th in the world rankings to 4th in the World Championships, and was also awarded the Best Libero of the tournament. Then, in 2015, he won the World League Group 2, then went on to win the Group 1 Final, becoming France's first World League champion. That same year, he also won the European Championships, his first championship as a member of the French national team. Grebennikov was also selected as the Best Libero of the tournament. This led to the French national team building the image of a "strong France," which continues to this day, and Grebennikov himself became known to many volleyball professionals and fans, which greatly contributed to his subsequent career.
Photo by FIVB
Advancement to Italy's Serie A and the Olympics
Having established himself as a volleyball player and a world-class libero, Grebennikov finally joined Roubaix, one of the strongest teams in the world's top Italian Serie A, known as the "BIG4," in the 2015/16 season. Just like when he was first selected for the national team, he joined the team to take over the position of former French national team libero Eno, who had been with Roubaix until the previous season (what a coincidence). He played for Roubaix for three seasons, and although there were times when he was unable to play as many games as he wanted due to the foreign player quota, he brought many victories to the team together with superstars such as Juan Torena and Christensen, including one league championship, one Coppa Italia championship, and one second-place finish and two third-place finishes in the European Champions League.
As a member of the national team, he won the final qualifying round for the Rio Olympics held in Japan in 2016, and successfully qualified to compete in the Olympics for the first time in 12 years since Athens in 2004. He also came second in the World League that year, which was a prelude to Rio, and went into the actual Olympics as one of the medal contenders. However, he ended up being eliminated in the qualifying round.
Photo by FIVB
the current
From the 2018/19 season, he moved from Roubaix to Trento, another prestigious Serie A club. Here too, Grubenikov showed his outstanding presence despite being a libero, and contributed greatly to the team's victory in the World Club Championship. From the 2020/21 season, he will move to Modena, another prestigious Serie A club where Yuki Ishikawa once played.
He continues to hold the position of starting libero for the national team. Half of the team members have changed since the Rio Olympics, and the team has achieved good results, such as winning the World League in 2017 and coming in second in the Nations League in 2018. However, the team seems to have a different fragility than before, as seen in their loss to the Czech Republic in the 2017 European Championships. Nevertheless, they managed to finish the team well in the Tokyo Olympic qualifiers, and successfully qualified for their second consecutive Olympic Games. Grubenikov played the full game in every match except for the throw-away set against the Netherlands, and always brought stability to the French court.
All he can do now is hope that the Tokyo Olympics will be held safely next year.
Characteristics of play
Grebennikov is a libero who can perform all the necessary skills, such as serve reception, digging, setting, and communication, at a high level. Among them, his digging is particularly impressive. First of all, his positioning is excellent, and he is there when you notice him. He also reacts quickly and chases any ball instantly. In the game I actually saw, he was putting a lot of pressure on the opposing spiker by shooting several spikes in a row that had broken through his teammate's block. It seemed that there were many scenes where the block shut him out or made spike mistakes because they didn't like him. The libero is a position that cannot directly score points, but Grebennikov's ironclad defense made me wonder how many points he could have scored. The libero dominated the game. In the current volleyball world, there is probably no other libero who is as trusted by his team, who is as unwelcome to play against, and who attracts many spectators.
Be sure to check it out in the future!!
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