By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet means business. The Serbian team defeated Barcelona at Palau Blaugrana, improving to 10-8 in the EuroLeague standings, with a 5-5 away record.
After 12 straight losses, they managed to prevail over Barcelona and, for the first time ever, won on Catalan soil in Europe’s top continental competition.
Ioannis Sfairopoulos was, of course, pleased with the big win and a big surprise, by the fact that it was the first-ever road win of Zvezda in Barcelona.
“First win here? We are happy about that, but we must forget it because we have a game in two days”, he said when he was informed about the magnitude of the win.
Speaking about the game, Sfairopoulos also talked about his calculated risk and the focus on defense that led to a hard decision: “We responded really well defensively. I had to sacrifice two important players, Nedovic and Canaan. I didn’t use them a lot because of our defensive tactics. We had one ball-handler for most of the game because we wanted to be strong defensively and stop our opponents. That’s why this is a big win for all the players who participated”.