By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Fenerbahce head coach Zeljko Obradovic was quite disappointed with his team’s performance in the blowout loss to Barcelona. The Turkish squad’s seventh defeat in nine games into the EuroLeague regular season.
“No matter how long the season is if we play like we did today…” Obradovic said in the post-game presser. “This is is a team without character. It is my feeling from the bench. We didn’t like this preseason because most of our players were with their national teams. Lauvergne and Vesely are 20% of their strength, and it is a big problem. But I insist on other things. Injuries are an excuse that I don’t like and are not true. Last year we played a game without big guys and showed character.”
A week ago and during the loss to CSKA Moscow, Obradovic cursed at his players during a timeout. “It’s a very interesting question,” Obradovic said when asked if his players quit on him following his timeout reaction. “You ask me for their opinion; you need to talk to them. I’m a coach for 28 seasons. Everything that I’ve tried to do is to help my players. In life and during the season and the games and the practices, you have difficult moments. You need to react and to try to find a way to wake them up and be better for the team. I don’t have a doubt about myself that I’ll continue to do everything I’ve done until now. I had some results as a coach; some of them aren’t bad. You can understand everything about people in their difficult moments. This isn’t the first time for me. This has happened in my life many times. I know how people react and how people start to talk. Gossip, rumors. These aren’t part of my life. I have my way. I’m in peace with myself, and I don’t have any problem. I really give the ball to them to answer your question”.
Obradovic proceeded to address what he considers to be a problem of “motivation” with his players.
“Basketball is important if you have motivation. In this case, it’s easy to have concentration. If you don’t have the motivation, it’s very difficult. This is the main problem we have. I don’t see players that have any kind of motivation. Some of them try in some moments. Some of them don’t. If you finish the game with Barcelona making only 16 fouls, does this show that you tried to do something? If you don’t even try to play defense, the result will always be like tonight. If you start to watch and don’t even try to play defense, even use the foul, the result will always be like tonight.”
“I’d like to say one more thing,” Obradovic then added. “This is my seventh year with Fenerbahce. Where we play we always have our people with us. Like tonight. We have been five times in Final Four and Fenerbahce had never been in the Final Four. And have never won the EuroLeague. We have incredible support from our people. Last game we played at our home court, It was really special. One night, 500 people come to our practice just to show the support and love they have. So a question to everybody: Do these people deserve to watch this picture, like tonight? I don’t know how many millions of fans Fenerbahce has It must be something special if you make people happy. And it must be something very bad if you have a picture like today.”