First game at Megasport after long break for our team will be marked with visit of Barcelona, one of the strongest teams on continent.
The Army Men practiced on the big arena last couple of days though not at full strenght. Many of Red-Blues missed practices, Aaron Jackson, Nando De Colo, Pavel Korobkov and Joel Freeland remain questionable for the game.
“Barcelona is coming here having almost a full roster and playing high-quality basketball both in Euroleague and Spanish ACB, they have a balanced team with a number of experienced players that won the Euroleague several times – individually and as a part of Barcelona team,” CSKA head coach Dimitris Itoudis. “They are athletic and they know how to play, especially in half-court, they have a lot of options, their playbook is huge and they know how to use it. They can play with spread-four (Doellman or Vezenkov) or two bigs (combined from Tomic, Samuels and Lawal), they have experienced guards (Navarro, who is doing a great job this season, and Ribas coming off the bench or playing together with Navarro) and Satoransky who is giving the rhythm. They have Arroyo, Perperoglou, Abrines… we can talk about their game all day long. We expect a very difficult game. Basketball-wise we are in a good situation but we have many difficulties brought by injuries. We face this challenge but it is more important to think who is active, how we can perform with available players. We will be prepared, we will have strategy, aggressiveness and will. That will be first time for many of us to play at Megasport Sports Palace. It’s a great arena. If I was a fan it would be a pity not to come here and celebrate great basketball event. I hope our fans will come in big numbers and help CSKA to win.”
