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Men's tournaments for the European Cup and Challenge Cup have begun
At the same time, group tournaments of two continental cups began, in which six Russian teams take part at once - the European Cup under the auspices of ULEB and the Challenge Cup held by FIBA-Europe (Eurochallenge).Let us remind you that the title of the club champion of the Old World for men is played out in the ULEB Euroleague, but two other competitions are also quite prestigious. For the coach of the Samara “Red Wings”, former center of the Russian national team Mikhail Mikhailov, his team’s home defeat in the first round of Group “H” of the European Cup was fatal. The coach was immediately dismissed the morning after the failure in the meeting with the Italian Caserta (78:85). Vladislav Konovalov will perform the duties of the Volga team's helmsman.
The paradox of the “Red Wings” is that at their place of registration and actual base in Samara, the team does not have a single hall that meets the requirements of the ULEB regulations. Volzhans host opponents in official international matches in neighboring Togliatti. The club's management made entry to the match free, and fans willingly filled the hall - 3 thousand spectators. Autograd is basically a hockey and handball city, but basketball is also held in high esteem here.
“Caserta” is now an outright outsider in the Italian league, and “Wings” with two wins and two defeats are in the middle of the table in our PBL. By the big break, the hosts were leading by nine points, but they frankly failed at the end of the third period and the beginning of the final one. It has been repeatedly noted that most often coaching resignations in team sports occur after home defeats. After all, these matches are watched live by both the top management of the clubs and sponsors. In this regard, Mikhailov was simply unlucky; such a guest fiasco at the very beginning of the game might not have had such dire consequences for the mentor. Mikhailov's team started quite well in the Russian championship - they beat Kazan UNICS and Krasnoyarsk Enisey, and one of the two defeats "Wings" suffered away from the Krasnodar "railroad workers" with a minimal difference in the score.
In another Group H match, Polish Anwil (Wloclawek) lost at home to Berlin's Alba - 74:86. UNICS plays in Quartet A, and Evgeniy Pashutin's visiting team upset the German Oldenburg - 89:72. Among the winners, Marko Popovic scored 23 points, four more Kazan players have double-digit results in the “performance” column. These are Terrell Lyday (16), American with a Russian passport Kelly McCarthy (14), Maya Lampe (14) and Hasan Rizvich (12), who entered the game from the bench. The guests succeeded in converting long-range shots. McCarthy succeeded in all three of these attempts, while Popovich scored four out of seven times.
Let us remind you that the group stage of the European Cup and Challenge Cup was preceded by qualifying tournaments in all three continental tournaments. So, for example, UNICS, without qualifying for the Euroleague, ended up in the second most important competition. St. Petersburg “Spartak” and the capital’s “Dynamo” could have ended up in the European Cup, but due to failures in two-game confrontations in the early stages they were forced to continue fighting for the Challenge Cup. Basketball players from the banks of the Neva began their new campaign with a confident victory in St. Petersburg over the Hungarian “Szolnok” - 88:70. Here the rules are similar to the EuroCup - the two best teams from each quartet advance to the next round. The “Red-Whites” are adjacent to the newcomer to the high society of the Russian championship BC “Nizhny Novgorod”, which failed to cope with the French “Graveline” on the Volga - 64:70. These were Group A meetings.
Dynamo Moscow in Krylatskoye left no chance for the Romanian Steaua from Bucharest - 88:60. Here, in quartet “F”, two Russian clubs will also be forced to compete with each other. Alas, in the first round, Lokomotiv-Kuban in Belgium was defeated by the Antwerp Giants - 83:87. True, the winner was determined only in the second additional five-minute period.
As for the fair sex, the fourth round of the Women's Euroleague is taking place this week. Another victory was won by the Russian champion UMMC (Ekaterinburg), which, in the presence of 4,500 spectators in the stands of the Uralochka Children's Sports Complex, dealt with the Hungarian Euroleasing (Sopron) - 81:60. The center of the Russian national team, Maria Stepanova, may not have been in the starting lineup, but she brought her 16 points to the team. At the last meeting of the executive committee of the Russian Basketball Federation, the head coach of the country's women's team, Boris Sokolovsky, mentioned the young UMMC player Anna Ostroukhova as a very talented basketball player. Earlier, Sokolovsky asked the management of the Yekaterinburg team to loan the girl to the ranks of the Novosibirsk Dynamo, which he heads, in order to receive guaranteed playing practice. The request was not fulfilled, and Ostroukhova, even after defeating her opponent, spent only four minutes of net time on the court for UMMC.