Basketball club «Astana» will play its first home match in the new season. As part of the VTB United League, our squad will face the Polish team “Zielona Gora” on the court. The match will take place in Nur-Sultan at the arena of «Saryarka» cycle track on Saturday, October 16, starting at 14:00 Nur-Sultan time.
! ATTENTION — We kindly ask all the fans to carefully read the Rules for visiting home matches. The Northern entrance will be the only one available (from the side of Orynbor Street, opposite the gas station).
«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, 2020/2021
- Bronze medalist of the Polish Championship — 2011/2012
- Polish Cup Winner — 2015, 2017, 2021
- Silver medalist of the Polish Cup — 2016, 2018
- Polish Super Cup Winner — 2015, 2020, 2021
Roster: The Polish team has changed their roster quite a lot compared to last season. 12 players had left the team in the offseason, including all foreign players. Americans Chris Richard, Adam Smith, Cecil Williams, Skyler Bowlin, as well as former «Astana» player Jeffrey Grosell will continue their careers in other teams. In addition, the Greek Nikos Pappas and the Latvians Janis Berzins and Rolands Freimanis, who, as part of their new team, «Nizhniy Novgorod», caused a lot of problems for «Astana» in the match last Sunday, left the team. From the local players since last season, the team did not announce Lukas Kosarek, Philip Put, Daniel Szymkiewicz and Katzper Porad.
Only four players continue their careers with «Zielona Gora» this season — Poles Krzysztof Sulima, Devid Brembly, Kacper Traczyk and Nikodem Klocek. The Polish team have signed two Americans this season and both of them are not new to the VTB United League. Experienced forward Tony Meyer began his career in Australia, Frankston Blues, and then moved to Europe, where he played in Portugal — «Vitoria de Guimares», Poland — «Satrogard Gdansk», Greece — «Apollo Patras», Lavrio,» Promiteas Patras», and is also the champion of the Czech Republic in the» Nymburk». In the 2019/2020 season, he played for «Zielona Gora», and after the season announced his retirement. One year later, he resumed his career, returning to «Zielona Gora». The second American is a guard Branden Fraser. He started his career in the Dutch club «Dan Helder Kings» and later played in the Hungarian «Kaposvari». After that there was a season in the Ukrainian “Chimik”, with whom he became the champion of Ukraine and two seasons in the Saratov “Avtodor” in the VTB United League. Then he played in the Spanish “Burgos”, the German “Bonn”, the Turkish “Fethiye Belediespor” and “Monaco”. Canadian Devoe Joseph tried his hand in the NBA summer leagues with the Raptors, but spent his entire professional career outside the United States. He played in the Ukrainian “Chimik”, the Spanish “Joventut Badalona”, the Turkish “Turk Telecom” and “Bandirma Kirimzi”, the French “Cholet Basket”, the Israeli “Maccabi Kiryat Gat”, the Greek “Rethymno”, the Venezuelan “Bucaneros de La Guaira” , Finnish «Nokia», Polish «Schlensk Warclaw» and Romanian «CSO Voluntari». In 2016, Devoe, together with «Buducnost Podgorica» team, became the champion of Montenegro. Serbian power forward Dragan Apic is also no stranger to VTB United League. After playing for the Serbian teams «Vrsac», «Crvena Zvezda» and FMP, he spent two incomplete seasons in the «Lokomotiv-Kuban» team, and then was loaned to the Spanish team «Burgos». Last season he spent in the «Buducnost Podgorica» team in Montenegro. As for the Serbian guard Nemanja Nenadic, this is his debut season in the VTB United League, and in general outside Serbia. Prior to that, he played exclusively in Serbian teams — «Slodes», «Tamis», «Mladost Zimun», «Pirot», «Vojvodina Serbiyagaz», «Dunav», FMP, «Mega Bimax» and «Crvena Zvezda», with which he became the winner of the Adriatic Super Cup, the Champion of the Adriatic and Serbian leagues. As for the local players, experienced shooter Jaroslav Ziskovski has returned to the team, having spent last season in the German “Rasta Vechta” and the Spanish “Balbao Basket”. A guard Andy Mazurczak during his career managed to play in the Greek “Kavala”, the German “Niners Chemnitz”, the Spanish “Caceres”, the Dutch “Aris Liuwarden” and the Polish “ISS Dobrova Gornitsa”. Experienced forward Przemislaw Zolnierewicz and young guard Konrad Szymanski also joined the team.
Head coach: In the offseason, the head coach, Croatian specialist ZanTabak, left the coaching staff of «Zielona Gora», and the Spanish specialist Felix Alonso also had left the team. The only coach who remained in the offseason is Pole Arkadiusz Milosevski, but he was also recalled at the end of September. So the coaching staff of the Polish team is completely new. Serbian specialist Oliver Vidin became the new head coach of the team. He started his coaching career back in 1999. At first he worked in Serbian teams — «Drvomarket», «Torlak» and «Vizura». He spent a lot of time in Slovakia, in such teams as “Dolny Kubin”, “Inter Bratislava” and “Vahostav Zilina”, in addition to coaching the Finnish team “Nokia”, and spending the last seasons at the helm of the Polish “Slask Wroclaw”. In addition, he was assistant to the national teams of Yugoslavia U-16 and U-18, as well as the Serbia U-18 team and led the Slovak national U-20 team. Oliver Vidin twice led the team “Inter Bratislava” to the championship of Slovakia, and won bronze in Finland. He became the coach of the year in Slovakia twicrand once in Finland. Serbian specialist Milan Mitrovic and Polish coach Jakub Lewandowski are assisting him.
Standing position: “Zielona Gora” has started in the VTB United League season with two major away defeats to the giants — CSKA and UNICS, as a result of which they are at the bottom of the standings at the moment. “Astana” is located in the middle of the standings with one victory and one defeat — 6th line.
Leaders of the opponents: After two games performed by «Zielona Gora», a Serb Nemanja Nenadic became the leader in scoring and the most effective players are Poles David Brembly and Andy Mazurczak. The team leaders are also Jaroslaw Zyskowski, Dragan Apic and Devoe Joseph.
History of the games: The teams held 6 games and the advantage was on the side of the Kazakh team 5:1. The only defeat “Astana” suffered last season in Poland, and that loss was very painful.
Interesting Facts:
- Zielona Gora” has never won in Kazakhstan.
- Bookmakers believe that “Astana” will not lose this match.
The match will take place in Nur-Sultan at the arena of the Saryarka cycle track on Saturday, October 16, beginning at 14:00, Nur-Sultan time.
Online broadcast of the match will be available on the main page of our website.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
