Today, the youth team of "Prometey" went to Mariupol, where between September 10 and 12 three control matches will be held. In two of them the local BC "Mariupol" will appear as a rival of our team, and one match “Prometey-2-DDTU” will play against MBC "Kramatorsk-2-CYSS-2". Dmytro Markov, the head coach of Prometey-2-DDTU, told the club's press service about the pre-season training of our guys, about the changes in the team and the near future plans.
- Dmytro Ivanovych, please tell us what are the main stages are included into the preparation of your team for the upcoming season.
- The guys gathered on August 16 and after in-depth medical examination, they began intensive training. At the first stage of training, the foundation of physical readiness for the season was laid, as well as individual training of each player. Now the training process is gradually moving into a game rhythm. We reduce the load and pay more attention to pair, group and tactical interactions on the court. Over the next three days, we will play three control matches in Mariupol, then return home, where a weekly training camp will be held, and then we are going to Sumy, where we will play two more control matches. Most likely, the hosts, the team of Sumy State University, will oppose us, but it is possible that in one of these two matches we will play against Kharkiv Polytechnic, if they consider it expedient to hold a short-term stage of their training in Sumy.
What changes took place in the team in the summer?
- Artem Yushchyk left us last season. In the summer we also broke up with Ilya Popov and Yegor Popov, Nikita Stalmakov and Alexander Galenko. We were joined by two attacking defenders - Vlad Melnykov, born in 2003 and Seraphim Novikov, born in 2004. Vlad can also play as a forward, and he moved to us from Kramatorsk. Vladislav Orzul, an experienced 21-year-old forward, a ward of Dnipro basketball, also trains with us. Vlad is familiar to Ukrainian basketball fans from his performances for MBC Mykolayiv.
In addition, I want to say that those who closely followed the performances of all club teams of "Prometey" last year, could not help noticing that in recent months Igor Klimov, Daniil Pirohov and Bohdan Bryniuk constantly worked with the main team. It should be noted that Igor Klimov got a lot of playing time at the pre-season tournaments - the Gavrilov Memorial tournament and the Prometey Cup, which took place recently. This is the great evidence of Igor's game progress, which was the result of the fact that he has good skills for the Super League, and the hard daily work of the guy over the past season, which did not go unnoticed by the coaches of the main team.
- Dmytro Ivanovych, from the very moment of the team's creation you have repeatedly emphasized that for the guys the fact of playing in the Premier League as it is was an invaluable help in their formation. You probably have some initial information about rivals in the coming season. Will our group be just as competitive?
- Without a doubt. I will tell you that, for example, BC Mariupol, with which we will hold the next training matches, has a very solid roster, as for the Premier League. Kharkiv Polytechnic will be at the same solid level as last year. The youth of Dnipro is a constant sign of quality. Reserves of "Cherkasy Mavpy" joined our group. Last year they had a very young team and it was quite difficult for the boys, but now they have become a year older and, of course, during this time they have strengthened both physically and in terms of games. We will have a decent level of competition and an interesting season is ahead for our guys!
