By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Former Olympiacos and Maccabi Tel Aviv head coach, Giannis Sfairopoulos, was a guest on the Direct Replay show on EEC radio and talked about his future, Olympiakos and Georgios Bartzokas.
Greek coach, whose previous job was with Maccabi (2018-2022), said that he might continue his career in Anadolu Efes, which is in search of a new coach to take the reigns of the team from Ergin Ataman, who has an agreement in place with Panathinaikos.
“We don’t know yet; we’ll see where we end up. There’s a possibility that I’ll be with Efes, but we’ll see; I don’t know the development; things are not over yet. For now, we will have a camp in Skiathos in the summer. We are making an effort to give basketball “breath” to the island and give the kids the pleasure to see players they see on TV, have fun, learn the “secrets” of basketball, and leave nice memories for their basketball years,” Sfairopoulos said.
His former team, Olympiacos, whom he led to two EuroLeague finals, will face Monaco on the first step in Final Four in Kaunas.
“Every match is special. And in the regular season, it’s special, either at home or away, but Final Four games are completely different from all the others. They are knockout games and have different meaning. Of course, for both teams, analyzing the games played between them in the regular season will matter, and certainly, both teams have things to look at, both positive and negative, when analyzing those games. However, in these games, it is the personality of the players that matters first and foremost, the mental preparedness of each team, how ready the players are to follow their game plan, certainly the experience from the Final Four, and certainly the luck factor, because a bad moment in games that are decided in the finals can play its part.”
His colleague Georgios Bartzokas led Olympiacos to first place in the regular season of the EuroLeague and consecutive Final Four appearances. He got honored with the Aleksandar Gomelsky Award for Coach of the Season.
“Congratulations to Giorgos; he really deserved it. Olympiacos consistently played the best basketball throughout the year and was rightly voted the best coach of the year. I think that Greek coaches have reached quite high in many teams and countries. I hope that it will continue with the new generations of coaches who will be at a high level and be able to continue the path that all Greek coaches have in Greece and abroad,” Sfairopoulos concluded.