Tonight «Astana» will play away with «Samara» in the VTB United League.
The history of this Russian basketball club dates back to 1976, when, on the initiative of the Honored Coach of the USSR Genrikh Primatov, the Stroitel team was created in Kuibyshev. Under the leadership of Primatov, she made her debut in the championships of the USSR and subsequently repeatedly became the winner of the championships of the USSR and Russia, and also participated in European competitions.
Since 2003, Samara has focused on the development of the youth direction, but in the summer of 2012 it was decided to return the club to professional status. The team twice became the champion of the Super League (seasons 2018/19 and 2020/21) and won the Russian Cup twice (seasons 2019/20 and 2021/22).
This season of the VTB United League is the debut for the team, and the upcoming meeting will be the first duel between Samara and Astana.
At the same time, the clubs have interesting points of intersection: the head coach of Astana, Oleg Kiselev, during his playing career, played for Samara in the 1998/99 and 2000/02 seasons. And in 2006-2009, the head coach of the Russian club was the ex-general director of Astana, Olympic champion Valery Tikhonenko.
Now Samara is in 8th place in the VTB United League table, having won twice and lost three times.
Samara has a good selection of individually strong players. Dealing with them is our main task,” said the head coach of the Kazakh team Oleg Kiselev before the game.
The match will be held at the Palace of Sports named after V. S. Vysotsky and will start at 21:00 Astana time.
You can watch the game on the official websites of Astana and the VTB United League.
Detailed information about the tournament, standings, schedule, and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
