Khimki – Zielona Gora opening VTB United League season
VTB United League will start today, promising a lot of good matches and hard duels like every year. Khimki Moscow, Zenit Sankt-Petersburg, Lokomotiv Kuban or Unics Kazan, are the teams that have the biggest chance to stop CSKA Moscow from their 8-years domination. CSKA made some changes this summer, but they still have the biggest chance to win the competition.
The first match of the season will be Khimki Moscow against Zielona Gora. Khimki is the big favourite in this match, but let`s see the changes they`ve made through the summer. In the first place, a lot of players left the team, some of them very important for the team last season: Stefan Markovic, Charles Jenkins, Tony Crocker, Andrew Harrison or Jordan Mickey, last signed with Real Madrid and had a very good debut in the Spanish Supercup. In exchange, they added a lot of players and strengthen the roster very much. Nine new players were added, including two players from NBA, Timofey Mozgov and Dairis Bertans. Alongside them, three new American players were signed to help the team: Jeremy Evans, Devin Booker and Chris Kramer. The Serbian Stefan Jovic was added to help the team with his vision and passing skills. Speaking about Russian players they added Sergey Karasev, Evgeny Valiev and Andrey Desiatnikov, all of them from Zenit St. Petersburg.
On the other hand, Zielona Gora changed almost the entire roster. Only three players survived from last season. There are five new foreigners added to the squad: the Americans, Drew Gordon, Tony Meier and Joe Thomasson, the Swedish player Ludvig Hakason and the Croatian Ivica Radic. The other players are Polish players coming from Anwil, Asseco Arka or Bonn. We`ll see if those additions will help Zielona winning more than 5 wins, like last year.
This first game of the season will be without any history because Khimki has a very great team and will easily win this game. Khimki is the main favourites to stop CSKA Moscow and in order to be viewed that way they need a very good and convincing victory in this first match.
Photo: bckhimki.com
Bogdan Vasile Tirc
