| CSKA won the title of ULEB Euroleague champion 35 years later, CSKA again won the right to be called the strongest club in the Old World. The fourth consecutive appearance in the Final Four of the ULEB Euroleague finally brought the “red-blues” a long-awaited victory. In Prague, the army team first beat Barcelona - 84:75, and in the decisive match they deprived the Israeli Maccabi of the title of champion - 73:69. After this defeat, the coach of the Tel Aviv team, Pini Gershon, announced his immediate resignation. CSKA basketball players played all international matches this season with black stripes on their jerseys in memory of the legendary coach Alexander Gomelsky, who served as president of the club in recent years until his death last summer. And CSKA dedicated this Prague victory to the Pope, as Gomelsky was called in basketball circles.
Without detracting from the merits of all the “red-blue” players who took part in the Euroleague tournament, we note that the main creators of the army team’s victory should be called the current president of the club, now the head of the “big” CSKA, Sergei Kushchenko, and the head coach of the Italian Ettore Messina. The first was able to withstand a powerful psychological blow after last year’s team’s failure in the home Final Four. Kushchenko found the strength to create a renewed and even more combat-ready team. Even though the club's budget had decreased, CSKA was able to invite one of the best coaches in Europe - Messina, who had already won the main continental tournament twice with Benetton.
The Italian confirmed his highest professionalism in the ranks of the army. The team, which he had not yet built, began the season with two defeats in the Euroleague and a misfire in the match with the outsider of the domestic championship, Spartak St. Petersburg. Pessimists then started talking about the end of the CSKA era, but it turned out that those failures were only a prelude to the team’s unprecedented rise. In eight months, Messina created a unique gaming team, where even the loss of one of the leaders did not affect the result. The injury to main center David Andersen created additional problems for the Muscovites, but nothing more. A fairly average level of play, Belgian Thomas van den Spiegel, who was urgently called up from the Roman Lottomatica, showed himself to be a useful and reliable basketball player in the new team. Russian center Alexei Savrasenko also made a noticeable improvement, playing probably the best match of his life in the final.
Messina also had to deal with a personal problem in Prague, which could not help but distract him from his coaching duties. The mentor's 16-month-old child was hospitalized with a high fever, so the Italian led the team to matches with a heavy heart. Fortunately, the baby’s health has already improved. Both games in the Czech capital were very difficult for CSKA - the Muscovites were in the role of catching up. Three and a half minutes before the big break in the match with Barca, the future champion was down by 13 points, and the debut of the confrontation with the Tel Aviv team required an immediate time-out from Messina with the score 0:7.
In the final, CSKA dealt with two players who were included in the symbolic five of the Euroleague - American forward Parker and Croatian center Vujicic. The latter was crushed by Savrasenko and van den Spiegel, ultimately scoring only four points. The army team built an excellent defense, and the Maccabi basketball players mainly had to rely on three-point shots. Long-range shelling of the Russian club's ring brought only temporary dividends to the Israeli team. Trailing by ten points at the beginning of the third period, the Telavi team still took the lead six minutes before the siren - 58:56, but CSKA immediately followed with a breakthrough - 10:1. Papaloukas played beautifully in the end again. If the title of best sixth player was officially awarded in the Euroleague, it would undoubtedly go to the Greek army man. But since there is no such nomination, the ULEB directorate included Papaloukas in the top five of the tournament, although, as a rule, Messina threw him into battle from the bench.
The climax of the match came six seconds before the end of regulation time. Army player Trajan Langdon received the right to take free throws when the score was 71:69. If he had missed at least once, the opponent could have had time to make an accurate shot, which would have been followed by overtime. Luckily, Langdon was flawless.
“After all the poison that was poured on us after the semi-final, talking about the allegedly biased refereeing, we proved that CSKA is the real winner,” Messina said. - In the decisive game we met with a great opponent and showed very good basketball. Beating Maccabi is a great honor for any club, including CSKA.” The Italian modestly kept silent about the fact that as head coach he did not lose to Maccabi in any of the nine official meetings. Israeli clubs are generally ideal clients to showcase Messina's talent. In European competition, he won all 13 matches against them.
Tomorrow the army team will have to take to the court again. The quarterfinal playoff series against Lokomotiv Rostov begins. If CSKA again becomes first in the domestic arena, Messina will take a kind of “Grand Slam” to his home vacation. He has already won the Euroleague, the regular season of the Super League and the National Cup. There is one title left for the complete set. Ilya TRISVIATSKY |
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