By Dionisis Arvantinos/ info@eurohoops.net
As he explained: “I have the greatest of respect towards the journalist, however, my decision doesn’t have to do with you”.
According to Pascual: “The first thing that I learned here is that Panathinaikos is a family. When one of our players has a problem, we all do. When one of the coaches or a supporter has it, we all do. And of course, when our owner has a problem, we all do. It’s not logical that our owner can’t enter our gym. And besides the fact of who is right or wrong in this case, the most important thing for us is for everyone outside to get the image that we are one. We have good and bad characteristics, but we are one”.
Pascual believes that Panathinaikos and EuroLeague should be synonymous. “I believe that one EuroLeague without Panathinaikos will be a high-speed road without cars. And also you can’t imagine Panathinaikos without the Giannakopoulos family and without Dimitris. That’s why everyone should work in harmony, whoever has to take a step back, he should do it and an issue that should not even have started should end. I repeat that I don’t want to comment who is right or wrong. However, all involved parts should continue in harmony, that’s why we are here. I order to make our fans happy. My message is simple. Panathinaikos is one. I wanted to express my displeasure with a situation that should end and everyone should continue is harmony”.
From the losing side, coach Pedro Martinez said: “It was a tough game for us. We started the game with good rhythm, playing well on offense and passing the ball, but we didn’t have regularity. For me, the worst moment was the third quarter when we played bad on offense and not consistently on defense. In the last quarter with our young players, we improved our defense and improved our activity, and had a small chance to win the game. For this, we have to be happy because in general, I think Panathinaikos played better than us.”