By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
The two last Euroleague champions, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, trusted Greek coaches and got them with very modest contracts, specially if you compare with those of their Serbian predecessors, and this risk was rewarded. Olympiacos is preparing for one more Euroleague Final Four with coach Bartokas on its bench and coach Pedoulakis created from scratch a solid team that lost the qualification to London in Game 5.
Those two Greek coaches have been offered to a number of teams all around Europe, but none of them didn’t seem to be really interested. Here’s an unpublished story with Bartzokas. The coach had almost agreed last year to sign with German club Braunschweig. The team’s GM traveled to Athens in order to bring him the contracts, he attended the game of Panionios versus AGOR near the end of the season and changed his mind in the 11th hour, because he decided that he couldn’t trust him with his team. The Greek coach wanted to sign in Germany, but it was a fortunate turn of events that the deal with Braunschweig wasn’t completed. He signed with the defending Euroleague champions and Braunschweig hired an other Greek coach, Kostas Flevarakis.
Not even the first assistant of coach Ivkovic and a key figure in last year’s success of Olympiacos, Vaggelis Aggelou, couldn’t get a contract outside the Greek borders. Was his nationality a problem? Probably not, but he was offered to Azovmash of Ukraine, which decided to hire Aleksandar Kesar, the second assistant of coach Ivkovic in Olympiacos. Kesar was fired after some months.
The only exception in recent years is Fotis Katsikaris who has a respectable career in Europe and that’s why he was chosen to be the new coach of the Russian national team. Also, Ilias Zouros has a good reputation outside Greece and Giannis Sfairopoulos after a season in CSKA Moscow as coach Kazlauskas assistant, return to his home country and Panionios. Panagiotis Giannakis decided this season to take the big step and coach Limoges in France and the next stop for him will be China and its national team.
So, it’s obvious that due to the financial crisis in Greece, even more coaches will try to get out of the country and work abroad. And one may add, that, despite their stocks not being really high in the European market, specially comparing to those of Greek players, this situation is starting to change.