By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Before EuroLeague Round 1 meeting in Tel Aviv, between Maccabi and Partizan, coaches Oded Kattash and Zeljko Obradovic sit toghether for a special interview with Walla Sports. Two share a great bond, since their time in Panathinaikos, crowned with a EuroLeague title in 2000.
Obradovic recalled Kattash’s playing days, especially the EuroLeague final against Maccabi. Israeli coach, once a playmaker of Tel Aviv team, played a key role in the championship game.
“There was incredible confidence to encourage. We talked before the final and you said to me ‘Coach, no one at Maccabi can stop me,'” Obradovic said. “Today you understand how important it is to have a player who is so confident in himself, who comes to you and says ‘let me play, I know what to do‘”.
Kattash remembers bunch of emotions going around his head.
“I was in a storm of emotions, and it wasn’t easy for me. But you didn’t treat the game differently, and broadcast that everything was under control. Are you saying that I gave you confidence? You were the one who gave me confidence, precisely because you didn’t make a big deal out of it. If you had sat me down in a room and talked with me on this, there is a situation where I wouldn’t be able to play.”
Unfortunatelly, shortly after the great triumph in Panathinaikos jersey, he had to cut his career short due to serious knee injury.
“I was very sad, I was shocked,” admits Obradovic. “Even then you were one of the best coordinators in Europe. After what we experienced together in the first season, and after what you did and achieved in the Final Four – it was only supposed to get better. I understood you better, you understood me better. After all, we didn’t sign you for one year. This was the biggest miss I experienced in my career as a coach.”
Injury came suddenly, Kattash recalls.
“It was crazy. That summer, for the first time, I had a real break. No team, no NBA tryouts. Everything was fine. I didn’t fall or hit my knee. In the first practice before the new season, we went for a run in the Olympic Stadium, and suddenly I could hardly walk. Today I already understand from a medical point of view what happened there.”
Maccabi’s head coach also rewind the days when the offer from Obradovic’s Panathinaikos came.
“That summer I had offers from Bologna, Olympiakos, and Efes and they were willing to pay me more money than PAO. But Zeljko called me, we talked for maybe 40 seconds, and he just said ‘I trust you, blah blah blah’, and that’s it. I don’t know what happened. I hung up the phone, and decided: That’s where I’m going.”
He understands perfectlly why players choose to work with the most decorated coach, even when his team is interested in signing them.
“In the summer we tried to sign Mateusz Ponitka in Maccabi. I talked to him, and he said he needed to think about things. He is a great and polite guy, and got back to me. ‘I appreciate your offer, but Coach Obradovic called me and I decided to go with him,’ he explained. I answered him: I was in your situation, and I understand.”
Oded Katash also advised Yam Madar to join Partizan because of Obradovic.
“That’s what I told Yam Madar – if Zeljko signed you, he trusts you. Sometimes it won’t be easy for you, but at the end of the process, you will become a better player.”