Tomorrow at the Moscow Megasport at 2.00 PM our team will play with CSKA. Without exaggeration, we note that our opponent is more than serious, because despite losing the title of champions of the VTB United League last season and winning silver medals, CSKA continues to be the most titled club participating in the tournament. The 24-time champion of the USSR and 27-time champion of Russia, 10-time winner of the VTB United League, 4-time champion of the Euroleague and the winner of the European Champions Cup – this is not the whole track record of the team.
The composition of the ‘Army’ team has changed significantly compared to last year – during the off-season, the head coach Dimitrios Itoudis, who headed the team for 8 years, left the club's location (the coach moved to the Turkish club Fenerbahce). CSKA has terminated cooperation with forwards Will Clyburn, Jonas Jerebko, Andrey Lopatin, Philip Gafurov, defenders Alleric Freeman, Marius Grigonis, Evgeny Kolesnikov, Alexandr Khomenko and Yuri Umrikhin.
The first CSKA newcomer in June 2022 was a graduate of the club, who returned from the Serbian Mega team, Russian 20-year-old forward Samson Ruzhentsev, who signed a contract with the club under the ‘2 + 2’ scheme.
Literally the day after the news about the first player arrived, CSKA announced the appointment of 43-year-old Macedonian specialist Emil Rajkovic as head coach with a signed contract until the end of the 2023/24 season. Emil started his career in his native country at the Feni Industries club, with whom he won the Macedonian Championship three times. Four times the specialist became the “Coach of the Year" at home. Then Emil led the teams in the Polish clubs “Shlensk” and “Steel”, in Poland he was also awarded the title of “Сoach of the year” twice – in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, Rajkovic headed Astana and in his debut season of the VTB United League again received the status of “Coach of the Year”, this time from the ”bank tournament". It is worth noting that under his leadership, the team won 15 victories and took 6th place – the best result in the history of the team's participation. During 3 years of work in Astana, Emil Rajkovic became the champion of Kazakhstan three times and was recognized as the "Best coach" in the country the same number of times. The 2021/22 season was headed by Saratov Avtodor.
Alexey Shved, Nikita Kurbanov, Semen Antonov, Nikola Milutinov, Ivan Ukhov and Kasper Ware remained from last year's team. Defender Artyom Komolov returned to the club, defender Vladimir Karpenko moved from the double to the main team. Forwards Anton Astapkovich, Dejan Davidovac, and center Livio Jean-Charles signed contracts with the club. Short-term agreements were signed with defender Dallas Moore and center Andrey Desyatnikov.
Muscovites have completed their pre-season training by participating in the VTB United League Super Cup. The story of last season's final almost repeated itself again – in the final match of the Super Cup, CSKA lost to Zenit by just one point (70:71).
On October 3, CSKA played the first match of the VTB United League in the new season with the debutants of this year's championship Samara and defeated the opponent with a score of 85:72. The most productive players of the meeting were Alexey Shved (20 points) and Nikola Milutinov (16 points).
The roster of the CSKA before the game with “MINSK":
Guards:
2. Casper Ware (17.11.1999, 178 cm, USA),
3. Vladimir Karpenko (07.09.2000, 192 cm, Russia),
4. Artem Komolov (01.06.1993, 193 cm, Russia),
7. Ivan Ukhov (11.09.1995, 193 cm, Russia),
24. Dallas Moore (27.10.1994, 185 cm, Albania/USA),
91. Alexey Shved (16.12.1988, 198 cm, Russia).
Forwards:
8. Anton Astapkovich (29.01.1994, 202 cm, Russia),
10. Samson Ruzhentsev (23.10.2001, 201 cm, Russia),
11. Semyon Antonov (18.07.1989, 202 cm, Russia),
14. Deyan Davidovac (17.01.1995, 202 cm, Serbia),
41. Nikita Kurbanov (05.10.1986, 202 cm, Russia).
Centers:
5. Andrey Desyatnikov (04.05.1994, 220 cm, Russia),
17. Livio Jean-Charles (08.11.1993, 206 cm, France),
33. Nikola Milutinov (30.12.1994, 213 cm, Serbia).
Head coach – Emil Rajkovic
Broadcasts of the game will be available on the VTB United League website, the TV ‘Start’ and ‘Match’. Also, a broadcast will be organized for our fans in the club’s cafe the ‘Happy Day’ at 3a Uralskaya Str., we invite everyone to support the guys!