Translated material
Week calendar
Oleg Maskaev will defend the title won on August 12 this year in a fight with Hasim Rahman. Our boxer then knocked out his opponent in the final, 12th round of the fight. Ohello last fought in April and beat little-known Australian Bob “Big Bear” Mirovich on points.
FOOTBALL. December 5-6. Champions League. 6th and final round of the group stage. December 10. Club World Cup. Opening match: Auckland (New Zealand) - Al Ahly (Egypt). Toyota (Japan).
The 2006 football season for Russia ends with the matches of the last round in the Champions League groups with the participation of the capital's CSKA and Spartak - winners of gold and silver medals in both the previous and just completed national championships, respectively. The Red and Whites play away at Portuguese Sporting on Tuesday. At the end of September, in the first round, these teams in Moscow split amicably - 1:1. Head coach Vladimir Fedotov's team must win in order to grab third place in Quartet B and secure promotion to the UEFA Cup. In this case, the opponents will be equal on points (five each), and in personal meetings Spartak will be ahead. The Lisboners have lost all chances to continue the fight for the Champions League trophy, since the German Bayern already have 11 points, the Italian Inter have nine, and they have become unattainable for the Portuguese club. Let us remember that Sporting reached the UEFA Cup final in the spring of 2005 and then lost to the army team on their home field. Surely the football players from the capital of Portugal would not mind repeating and even exceeding that achievement. If they draw in the match with Spartak, they will be able to once again begin their campaign for the second most important continental cup.
On Wednesday, CSKA will play away in Group G against the German Hamburg. In this quartet, the position of the participants before the final round is as follows: the English Arsenal and the Portuguese Porto have ten points each, Valery Gazzaev’s team has eight, Hamburg suffered defeats in all five matches, and there is nothing left for them need to. To be in the playoffs of the Champions League, the army team absolutely must win, but at the same time, Porto must not have a fighting (or negotiated) draw with the Gunners at home. If three teams ultimately score 11 points, then CSKA will be behind the Portuguese and British clubs in terms of goal difference in head-to-head matches.
BASKETBALL. December 4--6. FIBA European Cup. 5th round. December 5th. ULEB Cup. 6th round. December 5-7. Challenge Cup. 5th round. December 6-7. Euroleague ULEB. First group stage, 7th round.
This week the Russian participants of the ULEB Euroleague will face rivals from Turkey. On Wednesday, CSKA meets Fenerbahce in Istanbul. Last off-season, several basketball players from the defunct Ulker joined the team, based in the Asian part of the largest city in Turkey. Among them is Mirsad Turkan, well known to fans of both Moscow clubs. Also playing for Ulker are two more players who were once involved in the Russian championship - Latvian Kaspars Kambala and Bosnian Damir Mrsic. By the way, the powerful Kambala, after six rounds, is Fener’s most productive - 98 points. CSKA leads Group C with five wins, ahead of the Spanish Barcelona on the difference in game points. At the end of the first round, the Istanbul team was balancing on the borders of the zone of entering the second stage - only sixth place with two wins.
On Thursday, Dynamo will host Efes Pilsen, also based in the city of two continents. The Blue and Whites showed themselves to be a team in this season, performing poorly on the road. Dusan Ivkovic's team lost not only to the reputable Tau (Spain) and Olympiacos (Greece), but also to the undistinguished Polish Sopot. But at home, the “blue and white” have yet to experience failure. A 50% balance of victories and defeats should be enough for them to reach the Top 16, but there are still eight rounds ahead.
In the remaining European Cups, our men's teams will play six more matches. ULEB Cup: Hapoel (Jerusalem) - Khimki, Dexia (Belgium) - UNICS. European Cup: December 5. "Azovmash" (Ukraine) - "Lokomotiv-Rostov", "Panionis" (Greece) - "Ural Great". December 6. "Khimik" (Ukraine) - "Dynamo" MO. Challenge Cup. December 7th. "CSK VVS-Samara" - "Tartu Rock" (Estonia).
VOLLEYBALL. December 5-6. Champions League. Women. 2nd round. December 9--10. CEV Cup. Men. Women. Qualifying round.
The capital's Dynamos, having defeated the Turkish Vakifbank (3:2) in the first round of the Champions League on their site, this week go to the tiny Polish town of Muszyna to meet with the gold medal winner of the national championship, the local Mushinyanka. The game will take place on Tuesday. The upcoming rivals lost to Cannes in France at the start of the tournament - 1:3, and demonstrated low efficiency in attack - only 36%. However, Dynamo had approximately the same figure in the game with Vakifbank. Of our 157 attacks, 86 fell on the world champions Ekaterina Gamova and Elena Godina. Well, the leadership in the list of scorers was, naturally, taken by Natalya Mammadova from the Baku “Azerrail”. In a home match lost to the Italian Scavolini, she attacked 65 (!) times in four games and scored 36 points.
CHESS. December 4--10. Superfinal of the 59th Russian Championship. Moscow.
The tournament, which will last until December 15, includes Petr Svidler (rating 2750), Alexander Morozevich (2747), Sergey Rublevsky (2688), Dmitry Yakovenko (2671), Evgeny Nayer (2648), Evgeny Alekseev (2639), Ernesto Inarkiev ( 2628), Nikita Vitiugov (2596), Evgeny Tomashevsky (2595), Denis Khismatullin (2583), Sergey Grigoryants (2582) and Ian Nepomnyashchy (2545). A dozen chess players will play in one round. The games start at 15:00. December 7th is a day off.
BIATHLON. December 8--10. World Cup. 2nd stage. Hochfilzen (Austria).
The program of the stage includes sprint races (Friday), pursuit races (Saturday) and the first relay races of this season (Sunday). Start of the competition: December 8 - 12.30 and 15.15 Moscow time, 9th - 13.00 and 15.00, 10th - 12.30 and 16.15. Women are the first to go to the distance on each of the three days, then the stronger sex. Due to the lack of snow in Central Europe, the starts of the World Cups in a number of other winter sports, previously scheduled for this week, have been cancelled. Forced downtime occurred among skiers, ski jumpers, alpine skiers and snowboarders.