Translated material
Chronicle
The leaders of the Argentine Football Federation have decided to offer national team head coach Diego Armando Maradona a new four-year contract. Negotiations on this agreement should take place in the near future.
Meanwhile, Maradona himself has not yet decided on his future and his possible answer to employers remains a mystery. A great footballer in the past and a very shocking coach of the present time, he is now in depression due to his team’s crushing defeat in the quarterfinals of the World Cup from Holland (0:4). Maradona is being persuaded to remain in his post not only by his wards, but also by the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez.
Kirilenko will not go to the World Championships
The country's best basketball player, MVP of our team's victorious 2007 European Championship, flag bearer of the Russian national team at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Andrei Kirilenko, announced his refusal to compete at the 2010 World Championship, which will take place on August 28 - September 12 in Turkey. .
Andrei explained his decision by the urgent desire of the management and coaches of his American NBA club Utah Jazz that he refrain from participating in the World Cup, because it is fraught with injuries or fatigue before the overseas league championship. The upcoming 2010/11 season will be Kirilenko's last under his current contract with the Jazzmen, and the Russian will receive more than $17 million - none of our athletes in any other sport has ever earned so much in a year. Let us remind you that last year Andrei was not able to help the team at the European Championships in Poland, but then he missed the tournament for a good reason. Together with his wife, Kirilenko prepared documents for the adoption of a child from an orphanage. According to the results of Euro 2009, Russia did not qualify for the World Cup, but last December our country received a wild card from the International Basketball Federation. Moreover, then FIBA leaders received information that the main star of the Russian team would definitely perform in Turkey.
Yesterday in Novogorsk the national team began its first full training camp in preparation for the World Cup. It will last until July 25. So far, head coach David Blatt has 15 players at his disposal. These are point guards and attacking defenders Sergei Bykov, Vitaly Fridzon, Alexey Shved, Alexey Zozulin, Evgeniy Voronov, Dmitry Khvostov, Maxim Grigoriev, Viktor Zvarykin, Evgeniy Kolesnikov; forwards Sergei Monya, Andrey Vorontsevich, Nikita Kurbanov, Ivan Nelyubov; centers Alexey Zhukanenko, Grigory Shukhovtsov. In agreement with the leadership of the national team and the coaching staff, a number of leading players will miss this training camp in Novogorsk, including Viktor Khryapa, Alexander Kaun, Timofey Mozgov, Anton Ponkrashov. They will join the team at a later stage of preparation.
PBL preferred the drawing of lots to the sporting principle
The professional basketball league, which will hold a tournament of the strongest men's clubs in Russia in the upcoming season instead of the abolished division "A" of the super league, at its working meeting outlined the rules of the competition. Ten teams will play the regular season in three rounds, followed by the playoffs. The quarterfinals will be held up to two victories of one of the opponents, the remaining stages will be held up to three. Matches for 5th-8th places have been abolished, here positions in the final classification will be distributed based on the results of the regular season.
If in the first and second rounds each pair of opponents exchanges matches at home and away, then for the third round the teams that will play five games at home, four away, or vice versa, are determined by lot. This decision of the PBL is at odds with the already proven practice of determining the advantage of the home arena under such regulations. For several years this was used in the Russian Ice Hockey Championship, but there, more games were played on their sites in the third round by the teams that finished second in the top half of the standings. Or, for example, when matches in the volleyball super league were played in one round, then again the clubs that showed the best results in the previous championship had an advantage in home matches.
Hat-trick of Belarusian Nekhaichik
The first matches of the second qualifying round of the Champions League football took place in various European cities, in which teams from post-Soviet countries took part. In one of these meetings, the player of the Belarusian club BATE Pavel Nekhaichik managed to score a hat-trick, upsetting the goalkeeper of the Icelandic Hafnafjörður. Israeli Hapoel (Tel Aviv) forward Maharan Lala also scored three goals. At this stage, seven clubs are forced to play home matches at other stadiums, since their fields are not allowed to host games of this level by a special UEFA commission. The winners of the 17 pairs (return matches will take place on July 20 and 21) will advance to the third round (July 27-28 and August 3-4), where they will be joined by higher seeds Basel (Switzerland), Anderlecht ( Belgium) and Copenhagen (Denmark). At the same time, a qualifying round will be held in parallel for ten teams that are not champions of their countries. St. Petersburg Zenit will perform here. Let us remind you that the winner of the Russian “gold”, Kazan “Rubin” and the capital’s “Spartak” are directly admitted to the group stage of the Champions League.
Champions League. 2nd qualifying round. First matches. "Metallurg" (Latvia) - "Sparta" (Czech Republic) - 0:3, "Aktobe" (Kazakhstan) - "Olympia" (Georgia) - 2:0, "Levadia" (Estonia) - "Debrecen" "(Hungary) - 1:1, "Partizan" (Serbia) - "Pyunik" (Armenia) - 3:1, "Inter" (Azerbaijan) - "Lech" (Poland) - 0:1, “Dynamo” (Croatia) – “Koper” (Slovenia) – 5:1, “Litex” (Bulgaria) – “Rudar” (Montenegro) – 1:0, “Birkirkara” (Malta) – “Zilina” "(Slovakia) - 1:0, "Sheriff" (Moldova) - "Dynamo" (Albania) - 3:1, "Hapoel" T-A (Israel) - "Zeleznicar" (Bosnia) - 5 :0, "Omonia" (Cyprus) -- "Renova" (Macedonia) -- 3:0, "Salzburg" (Austria) -- "Torshavn" (Faroes) -- 5:0, "Bohemians" (Ireland) - - New Saints (Wales) - 1:0, BATE (Borisov) - Hafnafjörður (Iceland) - 5:1, AIK (Sweden) - Jeunesse (Luxembourg) - 1:0 , “Linfield” (Northern Ireland) – “Rosenborg” (Norway) – 0:0, “Ekranas” (Lithuania) – HJK (Finland) – 1:0.