Whose game is in Surgut?
8 November we will have the second home match of Gazprom-Yugra, rival – Nizhny Novgorod Association of Sports Clubs or simply ASK. Ever since the days of “Gubernia,” our fights with the Volga residents have been quite epic in nature. The upcoming meeting is unlikely to be an exception, despite severe turbulence, in which ASK found itself in the current off-season.
The victory over Kuzbass in the playoffs last season played a cruel joke on the Volga team. The team eventually finished in eighth place, but paid for the departure of almost all the main players to other clubs. Setter Tyushkevich and central Dovgan were invited by Dynamo-LO, diagonal Zheleznyakov, Central Ananyev and finishing player Titich were bought by Zenit St. Petersburg, diagonal Sidenko changed his rental location to Neftyanik, follow-up player Kukhno went to Yenisei.
Add to this the transfer of the legendary Viktor Nikonenko to the coaching chair and vo a la – minus eight players. The remaining players from the “old guard” are Pyatyrkin and Antonov, to libero Zelenkov. The new team was assembled as follows:: Finisher Valeev returned from Krasnoyarsk, central Demakov were invited, Zakhvatenkov and Panasenko, binders Jovanovic and Khaibulov, finished player Mozzhukhin rose from the youth team. In Nizhny they placed a special emphasis on the return of the striking diagonal Andrich, who successfully played in ASC the season before last, but here too, to put it mildly, no luck - Leo never recovered from his injury and the contract was terminated by mutual agreement of the parties. Now the diagonal function is performed by Denis Antonov, who already took on a similar mission last season. The line of additional players was closed by Anton Karpukhov, who was invited after the start of the season, traveling to Nizhny from Kuzbass in transit through the Minsk Stroitel.
Despite all the vicissitudes with the composition, ASK doesn't look like a whipping boy, the team retained its character and matches with Volzhan for “Kuzbass”, not for Yenisei, It was not an easy ride for Ural. Yes, Nizhny Novgorod lost three times, but they showed their teeth. I think, that Gazprom-Yugra will definitely not underestimate the opponent. We’ll see what happens at the Premier Arena.. In this regard, it is interesting to remember the words of ASK libero Artem Zelenkov after the loss in Ufa: “The games ahead are more or less ours and there will be victories”.
dAhead at ASK Surgut, where they always treat their opponents with respect and never share the skin of an unkilled bear. But I want to, so that our players remember Zelenkov’s words, about that, that the opponent considers our game “more or less” theirs. Sports anger definitely won’t hurt us, as well as the desire to show, whose game will be in Surgut. We invite all fans to witness this in person., start of the match at 19 hours, Free admission, exit - as we agree.
