Βy Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
For the second time in their mutual history, Zalgiris Kaunas decided to end the collaboration with Greek coach Ilias Zouros. After his return to the club this summer with a new two years contract, Zouros was expecting to be in the lithuanian bench for long term, but that wasn’t the case.
It’s a well known fact that the new management of the team wants to start a new project after the Romanov era, during which Zouros had his first presence in Kauna. That includes a team based on local talent in order to have also financial stability by paying older debts, which were the main legacy of former owner Vladimir Romanov to the club, but at this level of competition there seems to be no patience after all.
Zalgiris started the season by losing in Euroleague and the last defeat for LKL by Siauliai created a rift between the coach and the front office. Zalgiris decided to replace him with a familiar and also legendery face, as Saulius Stombergas, the captain of the Euroleague champion 1999 team is now the new head coach, after being responsible for the junior teams.
Still Zouros and Zalgiris will meet again, probably in BAT. There are still debts to the coach created by Romanov’s management and also according to sources close to the situation Zalgiris hasn’t paid him during the last three months.