Handball players “Kuban” in the opening match lost to “Star”

The star shone brighter

On September 12, the Krasnodar Kuban started in the 31st draw of the Russian Women’s Handball Championship. In total, there are thirteen participants in the tournament, but the calendar has determined for the first match, perhaps, the most principled rival for the “yellow-greens” of recent years – Zvezda from Zvenigorod. “Kuban” beat her twice in battles for bronze medals. But in the previous championship of Russia, the Moscow Region club climbed higher than Krasnodar: it took fourth place against sixth.

Now the team of Denis Saifulin failed to cope with a recalcitrant opponent. The match at the Olympus Sports Palace was nevertheless held with a majority of the guests, who played better. “Kuban” led only in the starting five minutes of the meeting. The first goal of the season was scored by Ekaterina Bobina, followed by Victoria Zhilinskaite. A few losses, saves by the goalkeeper of Zvezda – and the lead of the Moscow Region team began to emerge. For a long time, he kept at the level of two or three balls, but before the break, handball players from Moscow Region scored twice in a row – the gap grew to five points – 20:15.

In the second half of the meeting, the Krasnodar players were strenuously catching up with their rivals, reducing the gap to one goal, and finally equalized the score (24:24 after Yana Savinova went one on one). The best attacking hosts was Victoria Zhilinskaite, who eventually scored seven goals. Alas, the turning point did not happen, Krasnodar did not manage to take the lead. The guests again made a gap of two or three goals, and in the very end, by analogy with the first half, they further strengthened their advantage – 36:31.

Krasnodar players conceded quite a lot: the goalkeepers of the team had only twenty percent of the reflected shots, the rivals had thirty. Natalya Nikitina, who scored nine times, especially annoyed the hostesses in the attack of Zvezda. Now, on the fourteenth of September, Kuban will play with a simpler opponent – Luch Moscow.

– A lot of mistakes in attack, marriage in passes, made seventeen losses … Having equalized the score in the second half, we could have taken the lead if we had implemented a counterattack, but we literally threw the ball away. Perhaps this was the key moment. The score is very big, both teams didn’t have any defense,” Kuban head coach Denis Saifulin summed up the match.

The season was opened by the match for the super cup, in which the capital’s CSKA was able to defeat rivals from the Rostov-Don Group of Companies.

Completed the task

Let’s switch to volleyball. In Tula, the women’s Krasnodar Dynamo successfully overcame the first stage of the Russian Cup. The task of the team of Pavel Zabuslaev, in fairness, was not the most difficult. Of the six participants in the fourth zone, a whole quartet of the best advanced to the next round. Dynamo did it, albeit not with a dashing victorious pace, but more or less confidently, taking, as they say, their own.

Two teams from the Superleague, where the Krasnodar players play, lost with a dry score of 0: 3 in sets – the hosts of the site from Tulitsa and the Belarusian Minsker. Dynamo won in three other matches. At the same time, only the victory over Lipetsk was dry – another member of the Super League, which was seriously updated this off-season.

The rest of the wins, over teams from the lower leagues, were not so “clean”. Difficult was the starting duel against the club “YUZGU-Atom” from the Kursk region, which the “white-blue” won only in a tie-break – 3 : 2 in sets and 15 : 11 in the decisive shortened game. Krasnodar also gave a set to fellow countrywomen from VC Dynamo-Anapa. At the same time, the Dynamo coaching staff experimented a lot with the squad.

The striker in the attack was the diagonal Alisa Glushchenko, in almost every meeting the club’s pupil became the most productive at Dynamo. And in the match with Anapa, Anastasia Zhukova scored 22 points.

The cities where the semi-final stage of the Russian Cup will take place will be selected on a competitive basis. The time for this round is October 27-30, and on September 25 Dynamo will start the national championship.

Recall: the Krasnodar club won the Russian Cup three times. For the first time – back in 1994 under the leadership of Vladimir Sinitsyn. That draw took place in Yeysk. In the early 2010s, the team got close to the trophy several times, but the Final Four went poorly. In 2014, in the home tournament in Krasnodar, Dynamo managed to lift the trophy over their heads. A year later, the team repeated its success already in Moscow. Both times Dynamo was led by Konstantin Ushakov.

On the Turkish side

Basketball “Lokomotiv-Kuban” went to the Turkish coast. There, in Antalya, the Krasnodar team took part in the prestigious Gloria Cup tournament. Three Turkish clubs became rivals. In the first of the matches Krasnodar defeated Tofazh. The Russian club pulled out a victory at the end of the meeting – 75: 68. The American Jaylen Burford became the most productive among the winners.

Then the level of resistance increased sharply, even “grew to the skies”: the Kuban team was confronted by Anadolu Efes from Istanbul, who won the last two Euroleagues, the main tournament among clubs on the continent. Krasnodar, despite the defeat, did not hit the face in the dirt and gave battle to the eminent opponent. Score 64: 73 is not the biggest defeat.

In the final meeting, Lokomotiv-Kuban faced Turk Telecom. This meeting was perhaps the least productive for the Russian club. Probably, the short period of rest had an effect: the game took place the very next day after the battle with the Anadolu Efes club. The first half of the meeting turned out to be unsuccessful for Loko: Krasnodar were fifteen points behind. We managed to play the third quarter and the fourth almost on a par, the Turks eventually won – 82:68.

Vladislav Yemchenko, a pupil of the club, acted as the captain of Loko at the tournament.

On September 13, Lokomotiv Kuban will start in the second pre-season tournament in Turkey. The rival in the first match will be another Turkish club – Bahcesehir Kolezhi.

It should be noted that Yuritsa Zhuzha and Roman Semerninov are currently coaching Loko. The head coach of the team, Slovenian Alexander Sekulich, who took up his post this summer, is now busy at the European Basketball Championship. He leads the Slovenian team, which made it to the playoffs of the tournament. At the group stage, the Slovenians won four victories with one defeat. In one-eighth of the finals, the wards of Alexander Sekulich beat Belgium and on the fourteenth of September they play against Poland in the quarterfinals.