Sport: day after day | Expecting a center player

21.08.2009 The Spartacus Basketball Team from Saint Petersburg, which is the fourth Major League Club according to the results in the last season, has gone to its first periodical foreign training to Paulahti (Finland). The delegation will stay at a hotel of a modern Sports Center until September 2, although two sportsmen will be absent. They are Egor Mescheryakov, who is now in the National Team of Byelorussia, and a member of the Russian National Team Aleksey Zozulin on account of his injury. The first beginner Levans Fields (USA) will join the read & white team directly in Finland.   For the time present his possibilities can be appreciated only by videotape recordings of North American Students Teams. The new Chief Coach Mr Alexander Trifunovich does not know the beginner’s real potential either. However, the coach hopes it will not take Fields much time to adopt. On Saturday in August 30, the Spartacus players are to take part in the first off-seasonal sparring with Kataye from Joensuu, the champion of the country. Field’s debut might be in that game, too. According to some evidences, Fields has a good sight of the playing sports area, as well as qualitative passes. 

As nearly all the players confess, Mr Trifunovich from Serbia demanded his players to show quicker games at once. At the same time, the trainings at the Saint Petersburg Sports Children and Junior School of Olympic Reserves at the Vassilievskiy Island had been held very intensively before their departure to Finland. The general physical training in the open air will be added abroad At the same time, there will be enough time for bilateral games.  As for the tactics, it will be paid the main attention in Bormio (Italy), where the team will fly in September, 6. As the coaches hope, not only some new players, but also the above-mentioned Mescheryakov and Zozulin will also arrive.

The main problem, which the Spartacus coaches are nowadays concerned with, is the absence of a strong enough center player. Aleksey Savrasenko the player rented in Saint Petersburg has left the team and Milovan Rakovich, Mr Trifunovich’s fellow countryman, is considered to be more the player number four than five. As Aleksey Karvanen the Spartacus Sports Director says that the corresponding negotiations are being carried out intensively and hopefully in the nearest future some of the famous European players will become the members of the Spartacus team. ‘We have started our trainings very well. I hope the team will play selflessly in the future as well’ — pointed out Mr Alexander Trifunovich before his departure to Paulahti.  He seems to come to know better the particular details of the basketball in Saint Petersburg.

Vadim Sheremetyev