By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
You can’t complain when you are in the Gloria Resorts in Antalya, Turkey for any reason. And of course, when you are there for the EuroLeague Head Coaches Board Congress, it’s easy to understand why a state-of-the-art facility is becoming one of the meeting points in European basketball and also why the coaches want to have an even louder voice on how European basketball is being shaped.
Under coaches Zeljko Obradovic and Pablo Laso, the EHCB was established not only as a coaches union but also as an educational tool for everyone. With Dimitris Itoudis being voted as the president and Giannis Sfairopoulos as the vice-president, the ambitions are even bigger after the creation of a solid foundation under Obradovic and Laso.
“After four years in uncharted waters under Zeljko we made a lot of steps forward”, said Itoudis to Eurohoops about succeeding his old mentor in Panathinaikos. “Both Zeljko and Pablo, together with the EHCB executive director Goran Sasic made an excellent work”.
Τhis was evident once again, with coaches from more than 50 countries arriving for the Congress Clinic, which included three open discussion panels, moderated by yours truly since Eurohoops is collaborating with the EHCB, “Moneyheist” actor Darko Peric and well-esteemed Turkish journalist İsmail Şenol.
Members-coaches Zeljko Obradovic, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Xavi Pascual, Giorgos Bartzokas, Giannis Sfairopoulos, Sasha Obradovic, Zvezdan Mitrovic, and also from the hosting country Ahmet Çakı and Selçuk Ernak were part of the panels that covered a variety of coaching-related topics.
All of the panelists were open to questions from all the participating coaches and their interaction was more than important to everyone who attended.
Newly appointed Panathinaikos coach Dejan Radonjic was also present, plus six masterclasses were held by Xavi Pascual, Ahmet Çakı, Selçuk Ernak, Giannis Sfairopoulos, Zeljko Obradovic, and newly elected president Dimitris Itoudis.
The Greek coach traveled practically just one day to Antalya, after coaching the Greek national team in the FIBA World Cup qualifiers and then going to Istanbul, where he will coach Fenerbahce from next season.
“We have to push the envelope even further”, said coach Dimitris Itoudis about the next steps of the EHCB.
“We have to talk about the issues we are facing as EuroLeague coaches, we have to improve our conditions of work as EuroLeague coaches, we have to have an opinion on every important EuroLeague issue, and we must have a say as coaches”, added coach Giannis Sfairopoulos.
“We need to continue the work of the previous presidency and for it’s important to make at least one step further, to improve things even more”, said Sfairopoulos. “The benefits of being a member of the EHCB are more than important and having the opportunity to be at the congress, meet all the other coaches, together with our families, and built a spirit of camaraderie, in my opinion, it’s priceless”.
As coach Itoudis concluded: “Those are not easy times, but our colleagues must understand why we should have a strong union. We need a strong union, we need a voice in every decision. Coaches are a very important part of a basketball team, we are the ones managing the top sports personalities of each club and that’s why we need to have input to decisions that have to do with the sport, the rules, the pre-season, the evolution of the sport. We love the sport and that’s why we have to be asked about our opinion”.