Zenit-2 starts in the Russian Cup

The reserve team of the blue-whites will kick off their participation in the Winline Russian Cup with an away match against CSKA-2 in the 1/16 finals of the tournament. Oliver Popovic’s team is set to defend the title won last season by the main Zenit squad.

This summer, CSKA's second team was taken over by former Zenit-2 coach Anton Yudin. The army team had a reserved start in the 2024/25 Super League, with two losses and two wins. Their recent game ended in a defeat away against Chelbasket (76:73).

At the start of the season, forwards Ivan Zaitsev and Philip Gafurov stand out in the opposing team, scoring 11.8 points per match. And the best assistant of the hosts is point guard Ilya Ermakov, who gives out an average of 4.2 assists per game.

Previously, our teams only met in the regular season of the Super League. In this rivalry, the upper hand so far belongs to the team from St. Petersburg, with 3 wins compared to CSKA's 1.

Zenit-2 head coach Oliver Popovic shared his thoughts before the Cup opener:

A well-assembled, young and talented team with a very good coach. Overall, CSKA-2 shares a similar idea with Zenit-2 — to give young players a chance. The average age of the squads is similar, but we have two slightly more experienced players. Physically, they are very good. I hope it will be an interesting match.

The game will take place on October 23 in Moscow at the Dynamo Sport Palace. The match will start at 19:00 St. Petersburg time. The game will be broadcast on the Okko Sport.