By Stefan Djordjevic/ info@eurohoops.net
A former player of Olympiacos and Panathinaikos and also a fan favorite of Iberostar Tenerife, Giorgos Bogris talks after winning to the Intercontinental Cup about the status of his team, the challenges of the competition and the next big goal of the club, the Spanish Copa Del Rey.
How big is to win the Intercontinental Cup?
Today we wanted to win this very important title, the Intercontinental FIBA Cup, in our house, with our crowd, our fans and we’re very happy to achieve the goal. We have been working for this for many months now with an excellent coaching staff and were really happy.
The tournament had four great teams. The G-League champion, the champion of BCL Americas, the defending champion of BCL, Tenerife…. Does it make it more special?
It’s a very very important title, we’ve managed to win the final against a very important team like Virtus, a Euroleague level team with amazing players and awesome coaching staff, and achieving this goal against such an important rival makes this Intercontinental Cup even more amazing and deserves more credit.
You are the key man says coach Txus Vidorreta…
Well, I’m more than happy to be here, coming here and being able to work with such an amazing group of people and an amazing staff lead by Txus. Hopefully, I’ll be able to play here for many years, I can call Tenerife my second home. MY job is not to put numbers, stats don’t matter, my job is to win, I only want to sacrifice for the good of the team and I think I’m good at this task, I like my job. I bring what the canary people want: work, sacrifice, joy… and many more.
What is the secret? This past summer there was a roster overhaul, all players are new but it seems it doesn’t matter…
The key is the coach, the mentality of the team, it’s a big team that has built his own brand name winning important games, we don’t have fear of playing against no team, everyone has stepped forward… Me, Marcelinho, Sasu, Shermadini, everyone has done their job to change totally the focus and mentality and we have team and Project for a while, we will bring more smiles to the fans, happiness, we will continue with this mentality, winning… We’re a reality, no longer a surprise. Now when we step on the court we’re favored to win, we’ve come a long way from three or four years back. This is no longer a Cinderella story.
And with no time left to rest you have the challenge of Copa Del Rey. Are you ready?
Now we have two days to rest in order to prepare for another goal we have with the Copa del Rey in Málaga against a very tough first game against Andorra.