Although Vatutinki sports center belongs to CSKA for almost 50 years basketball club rarely used it even in the Soviet period. The reason was simple – the absence of the basketball hall. So only first camps in the season, when the teams were focused on physical conditions were held in there. But now the center has the hall so CSKA juniors became the first team in the modern history to experience the welcome of Vatutinki.
The only person in the team who can compare old Vatutinki to the re-new one is team masseur Anatoly Zolotov. But nevertheless it would not take one a long time to find out which sides of the center were rebuilt and that the swimming pool and one of the residential constructions are still waiting for the rebuilding.
The new hall made Vatutinki a comfortable place for the training camp. It is just 150 steps away from the place where the team lives. The only minus of it were non-professional basketball stands. The explanation of the fact is simple. The center was contracted mostly for the comfort of soccer team. But the problem was solved easily. The stands were brought from USK CSKA. Junior team uses another part of center infrastructure – the stadium. Andrey Maltsev’s team uses it for crosses and other running exercises. The stadium is also at the same distance to the rooms.
As for the junior team itself, the coaching staff is busy with building it in every way – on and off the court. On the court the coaches trying to make the players actions more clever, but still in some ways the game performed by the team looks more like streetball than basketball. Off the court life of the team includes ‘anti Coca-Cola’ campaign of the coaching staff. Sweet sparkling water is not recommended to the players, but the juniors do their best to bring Cola to their rooms. Another reason for ‘fighting’ between coaches and players is order in the rooms. The rule: ‘Order in the room is the first step to the order on the court’ is one of the basics of the team. The reconstructure of the Vatutinki sports center brought coaching staff another opportunity to make the players focus on basketball. There is no TV-sets in the rooms right now. So the manager of the team brought the device from CSKA office. It was given to the players together with the videotape recorder and a lot of cassettes with basketball games. These cassettes is the only permitted ‘movie’.
The situation at Vatutinki was not unexpected by the staff. All previous teams passed through the same period. Today the team is going to play the first friendly against the team of Trinta basketball school.
The junior team would come back to Moscow on August, 25th. By the end of the month Andrey Maltsev would determine the final roster of the team. As soon as he would do it, we will announce it. Right now several players do not have contracts with CSKA and according to the club policy we can not name them in the report.
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