By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
VITORIA-GASTEIZ– One of the most memorable images that followed the finale of the EuroLeague Final was the emotional hug between CSKA Moscow head coach Dimitris Itoudis and club president Andrey Vatutin.
The two men broke into tears after the win of CSKA over Anadolu Efes. The camera captured a crying Itoudis telling Vatutin “Thank you so much,” while the latter replied, “You made me proud.”
“There was big pressure after Belgrade Final Four,” Vatutin later confessed to Eurohoops regarding the interraction between him and Itoudis. “There was a lot of discussion about Dimitris Itoudis’ future with CSKA. I was thinking about it a lot. Itoudis and the CSKA team made me proud. We are friends. Our relationship is not only the one between president and coach. It’s a friendly one.”
“He told me some private words which I really I appreciate,” Vatutin added. “It’s from my heart and also from the heart of Dimitris.”
Vatutin admitted that it was kinda rare to see him cry.
“I don’t remember when was the last time I cried. Especially for some basketball reason,” the CSKA president said before proceeding to laud Itoudis.
CSKA Moscow suffered some surprising upsets during the EuroLeague regular season, and not only. In the playoffs vs. Baskonia, the “Army Men” found themselves losing a quarterfinals game at home for the first time since 2008 and thus in a situation where they had to win an away match in order to make the Final Four.
According to Vatutin, the fact that the season wasn’t that much of a “cakewalk”, helped build the powerful mettlethe team displayed in Vitoria.
“The season was very difficult. The regular season was difficult. A Final Four against the favorite: Real Madrid. Nothing was easy. For the first time after many years we didn’t finish first in the regular season season. But it was all about character. Character, character, character.”