Sport day by day | Mistakes are not an option

06.04.2010 The moment of truth is coming for “Spartak”. Yesterday we learnt the calendar of the third round where the Petersburg team together with “Lokomotiv-Kuban” from Krasnodar, “Triumf” from Moscow region, “Krasnye krylya” from Samara and “Enisei” from Krasnoyarsk will identify the loser that will “flop” the play-off. “Spartak” is in troubled waters, and unless the Spartak players want to go on vacation in late-April yet, mistakes are not an option for the fosterlings of Tsvi Sherf during the swift-passing third round (four games only). The club from the Neva banks reached its defeat limit over and above at the first stage of the Russian championship yet, “We are going to win all four games and to struggle for the seventh position”, optimistically says Aleksei Karvanen, the sports director of “Spartak”. “I think it’s a real thing for us, the more so as with the exception of the Krasnodar club, “Spartak” has already outplayed all the other teams this year. I personally dismiss any thought that we will turn out to be the ninth one too many and will eventually fail to get into the play-off. I hope that both the guys and the coaches think the same.” There is no other choice for Sherf who surely intends to stay in Petersburg for the next season as well. He will hardly manage to repeat the achievement of Evgeny Pashutin and break into the semifinal with “Spartak” but to yield decently at the start of the play-off and to fight in the games for the 5-8 position is the immediate goal that the Spartak players under the guidance of the Israelite just must reach. As a first step, however, it would be good to leave the last position in the standings at last and they may have to do it without Vasily Zavoruev, a shooting guard, and Egor Meshcheryakov, a power forward. This season Egor has been a stable player of the  starting five. Both basketball players have problems with their Achilles tendons and instead of preparing for the Saturday game against “Triumf” are trying to understand together with doctors how they should continue preparing. “I’ve had a preliminary examination today, now there is one more to make. I may miss the rest of the season. Anyway, the decision will be made this week,” said the Belorussian forward of “Spartak”. “Problems with the Achilles tendon arise intermittently: now it bothers me and then it doesn’t. While I could bear the pain, I took pills and came onto the ground. But when I could no longer run due to the problems of my Achilles tendon, I had to take more serious measures.” In case of the loss of Meshcheryakov Sherf will also have to think of something. Who will replace Egor? James White looks better as the small forward and Goran Suton is of no help for “Spartak” after an operation on his meniscus at least till mid-April while Roman Levter is more accustomed to the bench than to feats on the ground.

All the other Spartak players are alive and well and are getting ready for the start of the third round in Chekhov. The club motivated their departure to Moscow region by lack of the facilities for training of a Superleague team in Petersburg. “Besides, we thought that we might have to play the first match in the Russian capital. And then if we were to go somewhere, it is much easier to do it from Moscow,” explained Aleksei Karvanen the stand of “Spartak”. I wonder that should Spartak players enter the play-off, they will have to think again where they can beguile two weeks (the third round finishes on 30 April while the play-off starts on 13 May only).
 
Alexander Kavokin