Βy Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
Lucas Mavrokefalidis of Spartak St. Petersburg started the season impressively after a tough summer and a surgery in his injured groins. He was the ΜVP of the 5th gameday in VTB league and he sets his sights high for himself and his team, because he doesn’t feel that CSKA Moscow is invincible!
“I feel much better in comparison with last season, which was my first in Russia. One year is enough in order to fully adapt and it also helps that I am fully healed. We started really good in VTB league, but we were beaten badly at Samara, but what counts is the endurance of a team. I hope that we can push ourselves over our limits and achieve something really great”.
As the Greek forward explains: “We can take one more step in Eurocup. Last season we reached the final four, but lost the semifinal to Khimki in a game that was decided in the details. Also CSKA Moscow has many problems and I don’t think that it’s an unbeatable team. There are many good teams in Russia that can challenge the champion. We are one of them. We played them (for PBL) and we lost in the end. The final score doesn’t describe what happened in the game. We were up four points three minutes before the end of the game and then strange things started to happen”.
His contract with Spartak is ending this summer. So, what he thinks about his future? “There is a lot of time until then, so I don’t think about it. I don’t want to lose my focus. Spartak is the only thing in my mind and I want us to have a great season. To be honest, I want to return to Euroleague”!
What Mavrokefalidis already thinks about the summer has to do with the Greek national team. He was banned from the team by the Greek Federation, because he refuse to play for the team due to a family problem, but he wants to return and as he says to Eurohoops he is ready to contribute again, putting aside any past misunderstanding: “I am available for the national team! I really want to play as a member of the Greek team to the upcoming Eurobasket”.
And, of course, he still follows Euroleague and the Greek basketball in general and he was watching when his former team, Olympiacos, conquered last season the team of Europe: “I never expected something like that, specially after the way the season had started! But you could see that Olympiacos was playing great in the spring and anything could happen. I was watching the final with Yotam Halperin (ed.note: one more ex-Olympiacos player who was a member of Spartak last season) in his house and we couldn’t believed it! We celebrated the win, we were happy for our former teammates, because they deserved it for all their work and their character. And the truth is that almost every Russian fan, except those of CSKA, was happy for the result, due to the fact that CSKA is not the most likable team for all the others basketball fans in the country”.