ASK youself
First, what comes to mind when mentioning ASK - two insulting defeats of Gazprom-Ugra in Surgut in January 2021 of the year. Then our team played a series of home games, as a result of which she could and should have scored a sufficient number of points, to stay in the playoffs. But first we lost to Nizhny Novgorod 13:15 a tiebreaker, and the next day they 2:0, but again failed to win. Reminds nothing?
We are talking about the last match in Nizhnevartovsk, and in this perspective, the upcoming meeting with ASK is an excellent chance for rehabilitation in two directions at once. it seems, that the circumstances are in our favor: there are quite a lot of players in the Volzhan infirmary, among which is the young talented diagonal Yegor Sidenko, additional player Alexander Pyatyrkin and main libero Nikita Eremin. But we also have losses.: Rajab Shahbanmirzaev did not have time to recover, how Nikita Alekseev twisted his ankle, remains out of the game Kirill Kostylenko. At the same time, ASK is not the right team, which is declining in the face of a shortage of personnel.
In particular, the position of the diagonal was quite successfully closed by the nominal finisher Denis Antonov, returned to service and veteran captain Viktor Nikonenko, ten years older than his head coach Andrey Dranishnikov. As a central blocker, Nikonenko has great competition: experienced Andrey Ananiev and our good friend Artem Dovgan, whom we will be glad to see again at the Premier Arena site. In the replay today, there is no alternative to a pair of another combat veteran Andrey Titich and Nikita Kukhno. And the player of the national team of Belarus Konstantin Tyushkevich passes in the team.
But most importantly, what you need to know about ASK is a team with character. Historically, in Nizhny Novgorod, they relied on a diagonal legionnaire, we remember the names of Wendt, Wietskyi and Andricha. Now this is not, but the fighting character has not gone away. ASK managed to do something in Nizhnevartovsk, what didn’t work out for us - put the squeeze on the tie-break of Yugra-Samotlor, won in Minsk without any problems and lost at home to Fakel. And Nizhny Novgorod residents go to Surgut with the most fighting spirit. Ask more English, as known, means "to ask". On Wednesday we will have a whole series of good questions., the answers to which are extremely important here and now.
