By Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos left for Karpenisi, Greece, where they are going to have the main part of their training camp and Giorgos Bartzokas talked about the challenges he has to face, as the coach of European and Greek champions!
As he said: “Our players have talent and the right mentality and that helps a lot, when you are the new coach of the team. I believe it’s harder to stay on top, when you already there. Every goal has its difficulties and we have to face a lot of them, since the competitiveness in Greek league is big and it’s even bigger in Euroleague. Olympiacos has to stay at the highest level and we will do that. We will work for the best and I ‘m sure, only positives things will come out of our hard work”.
For him personally the pressure of being the coach of Olympiakos is not that great: “Many people, even some of my friends, ask me if I feel anxiety, being the new coach of European and Greek Champion. I have zero stress, cause in Olympiacos the situation is totally different of what i had to face all the previous years. My list with things I have to do is way shorter, compared to the one I had in the past, cause Olympiacos is a very well organized club, which works at the highest level. Here, you have everybody’s support”.
And of course the support of a great team: “Also, the right mentality of the team helps me a lot, together with the personality and the talent my players have. And I have to say another important thing is the chemistry these guys have, between them. I want to add few new things in our game. For sure, the way Olympiacos played last year was the right one, something that is obvious if you just look at the results. We are going to keep many elements and we are going to add those which are going to make us look even better”