The VTB League SuperCup two Quarterfinal games will take pace on Thursday.
MBA (Moscow, Russia) – Fenerbahce (Istanbul, Turkey)
Time: 17:00 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, Moscow, VTB Arena Park
Braodcast: TV Start, Match! Igra, League website
MBA: The Moscow team in their debut season became, perhaps, the League’s biggest surprise. The mood of opponents and expectations from MBA will be different now. The team is more optimistic. MBA has retained its concept of relying on Russian players, with summer recruits Maksim Barashkov, Evgeniy Minchenko, Vladislav Trushkin and Gleb Sheiko making Vasily Karasev team deeper and stronger. Now MBA has a tight roster. Evgeny Voronov and Evgeny Valiev can miss the SuperCup and this will help to understand how well the Moscow team has done in the offseason. The game with the Turkish grandee will be a great experience and test of abilities for the team.
Fenerbahce: The Turkish Euroleague participant has had a strong transfer campaign, so they are one of the SuperCup favourites even with the loss of former NBA player Raul Neto, who was injured at the World Cup 2023. The biggest interest in Fenerbahce arrival is Dimitris Itoudis return to Moscow, who won the United League six times and the Euroleague twice with CSKA. Jonathan Motley is also familiar to SuperCup.
CSKA (Moscow, Russia) – Lokomotiv Kuban (Krasnodar, Russia)
Time: 20:00 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, Moscow, VTB Arena Park
Braodcast: TV Start, Match! Igra, League website
CSKA: The Army team had major changes in the summer that affected not only the roster (Alexey Shved, Nikola Milutinov, Dallas Moore, Dejan Davidovac, DeVontae Cacok and Artem Komolov), but also the coaching staff (Anton Yudin and Denis Godlevskiy). Finding a good replacement for Shved – Milutinov super duo is extremely difficult, so Emil Rajkovic announced that he is changing the concept with an emphasis on defence and teamwork. CSKA has looked good in the preseason, recently winning a tournament in Turkey, defeating Anadolu Efes in the final. The Moscow team will face Loko for the first time since the epic Semifinals of the last playoffs, where the Krasnodar team unexpectedly stopped CSKA, who dominated the regular season, in seven games – and thatis the main intrigue of the upcoming game. The debut of Melo Trimble is questionable, as he was injured.
Lokomotiv Kuban: Unlike CSKA, the Krasnodar team managed to retain almost their entire roster, which reached the Finals. At the same time, the team looked unstable in preseason games, including a streak of five straight looses in the friendly games in Turkey. But after Aleksander Sekulic return from the World Cup, where his Slovenia finished 6th, Loko won the Kuban Cup over Runa and Samara. The Krasnodar team has repeatedly stated in numerous interviews that they intend to build on last season success. The game against CSKA is a great opportunity to prove to those around them and to themselves that these ambitions are well-founded.
