Towards the end of this year, the basketball club «Astana» will take another trip within the framework of the VTB United League, which will start in Poland, where our guys will play an away match against the local team «Zielona Gora». The game will take place on the night of December 14-15, beginning at midnight Nur-Sultan time.

«Zielona Gora» - is a Polish professional men's basketball club from Zielona Gora, founded in 1946. This season, in addition to participating in the VTB United League, the team competes in the Polish Championship.

Achievements:

• Winner of the Polish Championship — 2012/2013, 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017, 2019/2020
• Silver medalist of the Polish Championship — 2013/2014
• Bronze medalist of the Polish Championship — 2011/2012
• Polish Cup Winner — 2015, 2017
• Silver medalist of the Polish Cup — 2016, 2018
• Polish Super Cup Winner — 2015

Team roster:

The Polish team has radically changed their roster compared to last season. The club cancelled contracts with all imports, among them the leaders of the last season, the Americans — Drew Gordon, Tony Meyer, Joe Thomasson and Swede Ludwig Hakanson. Croatian Ivica Radic and American George King also had left «Zielona Gora». In addition, the team did not renew contracts with local players — Poles Jaroslav Ziskovski, Przemislav Zamoyski, Mikołaj Wetlinski and Katzper Makowski.



Only three players have remained in the team since last season and all three with Polish passports — guards Lukazs Koszarek, Marcel Ponitka and Kacper Traczik. Four Americans joined Zielona Gora at once this season. First of all, it is worth noting the centre Jeffrey Grosell, who is very well known to the fans of the capital team, since in the 2018/2019 season he played for Astana team, and last season he played in the French «Orleans». American guard Chris Richard is also known in Kazakhstan, as he previously spent three seasons in the Aktau “Caspiy”. In addition, Chris played for the Estonian VEF and the German “Tigers Tubingen”, and two last seasons with “Oradi” twice became the champion of Romania. Forward Cecil Williams before the Polish team had spent one season in the French team “Sorgues Avignon” and one season in the Portuguese “Galitos-Barreiro”. Forward Blake Reynolds after university spent only one season in the Bulgarian team “Chernomorets Burgas”. Danish guard Gabriel Lundberg spent three seasons in Denmark with Copenhagen «Wolfpack» and «Horsens» before joining «Zielona Gora», and three seasons in Spain with «Manris» and «Canarias». It is worth noting that with the latter team he became the winner of the FIBA ​​Intercontinental Cup. In addition, the Polish team signed two Latvian players. The most experienced forward Rolands Freimanis, who started in the Latvian clubs «ASK Riga» and «VEF», then spent quite a lot of time in Spain with «Kasahol», «Huesca», «Lagoon Aro» and «Girona». In addition, he played for Italian “Sutore”, Ukrainian “Chemist”, Estonian “Kalev” and Russian UNICS. He also played in Turkish “Usak” and “Gaziantep” and Greek “Ifaistos Limnou». Rolands also spent last season in Poland at «Anwil». Forward Janis Berzins played seven years in Latvia with «Valmiera» and «VEF», then there was one season in the Italian team “Orlandina”, and the last two seasons he spent in Latvian “Ventspils”. The team also signed up three local players who had previously played only in Poland — forwards Filip Put and Kacper Porada, as well as a guard Daniel Szymkiewicz.

Head coach:

The coaching staff of «Zielona Gora» continues to be headed by Croatian specialist Zan Tabak. As in the previous season, the Polish coach Arkadiusz Miloszewski is helping him. The newcomer to the coaching staff is the Spanish specialist Felix Alonso.


 
Rival leaders:

The team leader in terms of performance and efficiency is Danish guard Gabriel Lundberg. Geoffrey Grosell, Rolands Freimanis, Chris Richard and Marcel Ponitka also show excellent statistics. The coaching staff of the Polish team are also constantly realising on the court Cecil Williams, Blake Reynolds, Janis Berzins and Lukas Koszarek.

Tournament position:

«Zielona Gora» have already played nine games since the beginning of the season and were able to win three victories. Poles had started frankly unsuccessfully — with four defeats in a row from “Zenit”, “Nizhny Novgorod” and twice from “Lokomotiv Kuban”. Jacques Tabak's team won their first victory at home in the match against «Tsmoki Minsk», then there was a major defeat from «Zenit» and an unexpected victory over UNICS. And in the last two matches “Zielona Gora” beat “Yenisey” away and lost to CSKA. Three victories of the Polish team allow them to be one line higher than “Astana” in the standings.
 
Game history:

The teams have played four games, two matches each, in the past two seasons. “Astana” has a clear advantage based on the results of the games, as Kazakhstani team did not suffer a single defeat in four games.
 
Interesting Facts:

• Former Astana player Jeffrey Grosell is defending the colours of «Zielona Gora» this season.

 
The match will take place on Monday, December 14 in Zielona Gora at the Hala Zelena Gora arena, starting at midnight Nur-Sultan time. The online broadcast of the match will be available on our website in the Match Center section, as well as live on the QazSport TV channel.

Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule, and match results are published in the Tournaments section.

Basketball club «Astana» could not cope with the pressure of the Polish «Zielona Gora» in the away game in the VTB United League and suffered a painful defeat, which was the first in the history of the meetings between the teams.
 
The jump ball remained with our team, but the Kazakh team failed to score points in the first attack. The same happened with the hosts, who in their first attack could not realize a throw, although there was one after the referee's whistle after a foul in the attack. Then Adonis Thomas stepped in, he took the lead and opened the scoring. In general, Adonis was very active in the first minutes of the game and effectively completed a series of attacks, and then add to this an accurate three-pointer from Michael Thompson and the start for “Astana” looked pretty cloudless. However, our rivals did not stay idle and constantly stepped on the heels of Emil Rajkovic's team, playing the role of catch-up for a while. Thanks to the “and-one” from Nikolay Bazhin, as well as points from Marble and Thompson, the Kazakhstani squad was in the lead by six points. Nevertheless, the middle of the first quarter turned out to be very unsuccessful for “Astana”, in two minutes +6 quickly turned into -4. By the end of the quarter, the teams were already playing opposite roles than in the first minutes — “Zielona Gora” was pulling away, and “Astana” was catching up. The three-pointer from Jeremiah Hill helped to catch up with the rivals forty seconds before the end of the quarter, but the last word in the first game segment remained with our rivals — 27:24. In such a game, a gap of three meant nothing, but there was a 'secret weapon' in the rivals' camp — ex-player of our team Jeffrey Grosell. Martins Meyers and Jeremiah Hill did not allow the opponents to increase their lead, but despite their efforts, it slowly but surely grew and closer to the equator of the second quarter became double-digit for the first time. Not everything went well in the attack, and the defence could not cope with Grosell, and the result was -15 points in ten minutes if we add to this three more points behind from the first quarter and we get the final and disappointing difference in the score at the end of the first half of the match — 61:43.



By the way, Jeffrey Grosell scored two points more than our entire team in the second quarter. After switching sides, it was crucial to speed up and start to recoup in order to count on victory. But alas, the first five minutes of the third period did not bring anything at all. In five minutes, “Astana” only once was able to effectively hit the target — Kolya Bazhin was accurate from the free-throw line with only one of the two attempts. Meanwhile, the Poles were in control of the game and by the middle of the quarter had already won almost 30 points. Emil Rajkovic was clearly not satisfied with this situation, and he used a time-out, after which things went much better, but the opponents always responded to the effective actions of our players. A couple of minutes before the end of the third quarter, the hosts' lead still reached 30 points, but not for long. “Astana” until the end of the quarter realized a couple of the attacks, but also missed one, as a result of which they lost twenty-eight points before the final quarter — 85:57. Such a situation was far from winning, and it would take a miracle to make a comeback, but it did not happen. “Zielona Gora” confidently maintained a more than comfortable distance, and the last chances of winning the game for our team were fading away. Five minutes before the end of the game, the rivals were 29 points ahead of us, and the outcome of the meeting was already foreseeable. The game was on its way to its logical conclusion, and the Polish team not only broke the 100-point mark for the first time of the season but also renewed their team record in the VTB United League, winning the match with a score of 110: 86.
 
Most productive:

• «Zielona Gora» — The Polish bigs were very active today: Jeffrey Grosell scored 23 points and 7 rebounds, while Rolands Freimanis scored 22 points and 6 rebounds.
• “Astana” - for Jeremiah Hill today was the day of three-pointers, he scored 30 points, with more than half from a three-pointer line, made 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, he was also fouled 3 times, as well as 3 losses, and all in all, it brought him 30 efficiency points, but this magic of triplets today did not bring his team success. Michael Thompson and Devin Marble have 12 points and 7 assists each, while Adonis Thomas scored 11 points today.

 
«Zielona Gora» head coach — Zan Tabak:
- Today we did a great job in defence. At some points in the game, we completely blocked the opponent's attacks. Even though we scored 110 points, I am glad for our efforts because we lacked it».
 
Head coach of Astana — Emil Rajkovic:
- «Zielona Gora» fully deserved to win, today the opponent was much better than us. In this game, I did not recognize my team. We must conduct a deep analysis and take steps to prevent that from happening again».
 
The next match: the capital team will go straight from Poland to Perm, where on Thursday, December 17, they will play an away match with the local team «Parma» in the framework of the VTB United League.
 
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule, and match results are published in the Tournaments section.