Having completed the Cup of Kazakhstan, the basketball club «Astana» is going to the first game in the VTB United League season with CSKA Moscow. The match will take place on Sunday, February 13 in Moscow at the new arena of the army team Megasort, starting at 18:00 capital time.
CSKA is a Russian professional men's basketball club based in Moscow, founded in 1923. This season, in addition to participating in the VTB United League, it plays in the Euroleague.
Achievements:
- Champion of the USSR — 1945, 1960-1962, 1964-1966, 1969-1974, 1976-1984, 1988, 1990
- Champion of Russia — 1992-2000, 2003-2019, 2021
- USSR Cup winner — 1972, 1973
- Cup of Russia — 2005-2007, 2010
- European Cup Winner — 1960/1961, 1962/1963, 1968/1969, 1970/1971
- NEBL Champion — 1999/2000
- Euroleague champion — 2005/2006, 2007/2008, 2015/2016, 2018/2019
- VTB United League champion — 2009/2010, 2011/2012-2018/19, 2020/2021
- Silver medalist of the VTB United League — 2010/2011
- Winner of the VTB United League Super Cup 2021
- Basketball club CSKA 2021/2022
.jpg "Баскетбольный клуб ЦСКА 2021/2022")
Roster:
The roster has not changed much compared to last season. This is not the first time the team retains its backbone, this time the team has 11 players left from last season — Dane Iffe Lundberg, Italian Daniel Hackett, German Johannes Vogtmann, representative of Georgia Tornike Shengelia, American Will Clyburn, as well as Russians Joel Bolomboy, Alexander Khomenko, Ivan Ukhov, Semyon Antonov, Andrey Lopatin, and Nikita Kurbanov. It is also worth noting the Serbian Nikola Milutinov, who last season was announced in February last season, this season he returned to the squad again. Thus, of the players from last season who finished last season, contracts with CSKA were not extended by American Darran Hilliard and Nigerian Michael Eric.
Of course, there are not so many newcomers on the team. From the beginning of the season, Lithuanian forward Marius Grigonis joined the team, who started in the Lithuanian Zalgiris system and then played in the Spanish «Peñas Huesca», «Manresa», and «Iberostar Tenerife», as well as the German «Alba». He spent the last three seasons in his native «Zalgiris». During his career, Marius won the FIBA Champions League, twice became the champion of Lithuania, and became the winner of the King Mindaugas Cup. Two Russian newcomers to the team need no introduction, especially since one of them played for CSKA — Alexei Shved, but in recent years he has been one of the main stars of «Khimki». Center Vladimir Ivleev has spent quite a lot of time in «Nizhny Novgorod» and «Lokomotiv-Kuban», and last season he spent in «PARMA». After the season began, American forward Kenneth Farid came to CSKA, who played for a long time in the NBA as part of the «Denver Nuggets», as well as the «Brooklyn Nets» and «Houston Rockets». In addition, Kenneth played for the Chinese «Zhejiang Lions» and the Puerto Rican «Leones de Ponce». Farid is the 2014 World Champion. But Kenneth Farid and CSKA parted ways and in December 2021 he returned to the United States. The most recent rookie of the army team was the American guard Allerik Freeman, the contract was signed with him only on the first of February and he only managed to spend three minutes in the thriller game against UNICS. Allerik managed to play in Hungary «Alba Fehervar», Turkish «Bursaspor», Chinese «Shenzhen Aviators» and «Qingdao Eagles», as well as the French «ASVEL».
Head coach: The CSKA coaching staff has not changed at all since the last meeting of the teams. The army team is also headed by the Greek specialist Dimitris Itoudis, and the same Greek Andreas Pistiolis, Russian Anton Yudin, and Spaniard Darryl Middleton help him. But since the beginning of February, due to the state of health of Itoudis, his assistant Andreas Pistiolis has been leading the team in the competitions. But already in the away match against «Maccabi» in the Euroleague, Dimitris was with the team, so he will most likely lead his team in the match against «Astana».
Rival leaders: Nikola Milutinov is CSKA's most effective player in the VTB United League, but Iffe Lundberg's most effective player in the army team is close to him in efficiency. Excellent results are shown by Tornike Shengelia and Johannes Vogtmann, though both last played on the court in January. Joel Bolomboy and Daniel Hackett have good numbers in statistics. Not far behind them are Nikita Kurbanov, Marius Grigonis, Alexey Shved and Ivan Ukhov. Will Clyburn also looks very good, but he has not been seen on the court in the VTB League matches since December. So the roster of the army, as always, is strong.
Standings: «Astana» is in tenth place with two wins in nine games, while CSKA is currently in an unusual fourth position with nine wins and four losses. This season, the Muscovites unexpectedly lost to Kalev, although they have already managed to take major revenge from the Estonians. We lost to «Zenit» St. Petersburg and have already lost twice to the current leader in the standings — Kazan UNICS, while in both games there was an intense competition, and in the last game, which took place quite recently, everything was decided only in the third overtime. Do not forget that CSKA is very actively playing on two fronts — the VTB League and the Euroleague, and the match with «Astana» will be their fifth in a little less than two weeks since the beginning of February.
History of games: For «Astana» and CSKA this will be the 23rd face-to-face meeting in history. Our team was very close to defeating the army team, but this has never happened so far. So in the face-to-face confrontation with CSKA, we still have non so far.
Interesting Facts:
- CSKA is still the only team in the VTB United League that has never lost to «Astana».
The match will take place on Sunday, February 13 in Moscow at the arena of the Megasport Sports Palace, starting at 18:00 capital time. Online broadcast of the match will be available on the main page of our website.
Detailed information about the tournament, standings, schedule, and match results are published in the Tournaments section.
