By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
With one minute remaining in the first half of the Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona for the 27th round of the EuroLeague regular season, Giorgos Bartzokas received a second technical foul by Luigi Lamonica, thus getting ejected from the match.
When asked about the incident during the post-game press conference, the head coach of Barcelona characterized the Italian referee as being the.. “star of the game”.
“He was the star of the game. I don’t want to say anything. I couldn’t help my team,” said Bartzokas. “I was in the locker rooms. In this kind of the game I don’t want to enter a situation where I criticize the referees. I never do it. Even today I don’t want to do it. I I have to avoid it. Sorry.”
The Greek head coach didn’t receive particularly well a question regarding if this match was his last Clasico. “What kind of question is this?”, he replied. “I don’t think so. “
Bartzokas also said, “We have a difficult season. Many things are happening to our team. We have to overcome them. In Euroleague we didn’t have the opportunity to play in the playoffs but in ACB there are some teams with more or less the same number of victories and defeats.”
“For us, the next game is important like any other game. We have to focus on the next game. We are still motivated. We have a difficult season, many things happened on our team this season. Somehow we have to overcome all the difficult circumstances and go on. With so many injuries we had this season, it is obvious we could not find chemistry. We had 12 or 14 injuries. Even today we played without Justin Doellman and Vitor Faverani. We don’t have an opportunity to reach the playoffs in EuroLeague anymore, but we have the Spanish League. Not every season can be successful. All teams have bad times, last season Madrid got swept by Fenerbahce; Barcelona and Olympiacos did not reach the playoffs. But then teams have to make conclusions; have to take lessons and go on. That is what I believe.”