CSKA — Zenit, 30 May 2022

PRE-GAME BREAKDOWN

The Red-Blues did not linger in the festive St. Petersburg after an enchanting victory in the Game 4 of the series. The team immediately went to Pulkovo and flew to Moscow by Aeroflot charter flight. The coaches defined Saturday as a day off and gathered the players to train on Sunday evening.

PRE-GAME QUOTES

Dimitris Itoudis, CSKA head coach:

We are approaching the Game 5 very serious; we don’t want to give anything easy to our opponents. We know each other well and we expect a tough fight. I ask all our fans to fill the stands and help us in the game.

"RELATIVITY" CONNECTIONS

Zenit newcomers Egor Vyaltsev, Sergey Monya and Vitaly Fridzon spent long period of their careers in CSKA - two, three and five years, respectively.

Zenit guard Dmitry Kulagin played for CSKA in the youth categories and professionally from 2015 to 2017. He helped the team win the 2016 EuroLeague title.

Andrey Zubkov was a teammate of Nikita Kurbanov in Lokomotiv-Kuban during 2014-15 season.

Alexey Shved was a teammate of 7 Zenit's players at Khimki Moscow Region. He played with Monya (2015-21), Vyaltsev (2015-21), Fridzon (2007), Zubkov (2017-19), Sergey Karasev (2019-21), Jordan Mickey (2019-21) and Igor Volkhin (2017-20).

Jonas Jerebko will also face his ex-teammates from Khimki - Monya (2019-21), Vyaltsev (2019-21), Karasev (2019-21), Mickey (2019-21) and Volkhin (2019-20)..

Maksim Karvanen played for CSKA-2 in the 2018-19 season.

PAST MATCHUPS

Wins-losses: 21-8 (5-0 in EuroLeague, 18-0 against Triumph Lyubertsy)

Games of the 2021-22 season:

12-Oct-2021. EuroLeague. Regular season. CSKA – Zenit: 77-67 (+10)
17-Jan-2022. VTB United League. Regular season. Zenit - CSKA: 81-68 (-13)
14-Mar-2022. VTB United League. Regular season. CSKA – Zenit: 79-78 (+1)
20-May-2022. VTB United League. Final. CSKA – Zenit: 83-59 (+24)
22-May-2022. VTB United League. Final. CSKA – Zenit: 82-73 (+9)
25-May-2022. VTB United League. Final. Zenit - CSKA: 93-79 (-14)
27-May-2022. VTB United League. Final. Zenit - CSKA: 110-111 2OT (+1)

SHORT DOSSIER

Zenit St.Petersburg, Russia

Founded: 2014
Colors: dark-blue, white, light-blue
Homecourt: SIBUR Arena (7,120)
CEO: Alexander Tserkovny
Head coach: Xavi Pascual
Website: basket.fc-zenit.ru