Christos Marmarinos told EOK WebRadio incredible stories from his time in the Kosovo national team

What is it like for a professional coach to coach the Kosovo national team? What did Christos Marmarinos experience there and how did this experience “flow”? The current Sacramento Kings scout spoke to EEC WebRadio’s “Basketball Immigrants” show and shared incredible stories about the craziest challenge of his career in the sport.

How he ended up in Kosovo: “Through one of my old players I was approached by the president of the association and asked if I was interested. We then conducted two interviews and decided to work together. It was like entering a time machine, going back 50 years and seeing how things were before the development of basketball in Greece. This time was something very special.

The reason why he decided to go there: “I thought about it and considered it carefully. When you go to work in a country like this, you basically have to have a certain missionary mentality. You go to a place that is very backward in terms of sports, there is not that good infrastructure, the mindset and culture they have for basketball is also very backward and you say that you will go to one on the condition that you help You will go to such a place. Promote the development of the sport and give the people there a chance if they see something different. If you look at it purely professionally, I don’t think it’s worth it. I had a piece of… romance that made me want to engage in this process.”

On the question of whether the Kosovars had doubts about him, also because of the relations between Greece and Serbia: “They had a lot of doubts, second and third thoughts, they were very suspicious of me.” It took a lot of effort and communication to convince them of the difference, and it took a lot of contacts at the diplomatic level, which I helped to establish . Now there is contact and communication between the two countries.

Before my presence there were few cases of communication between Kosovo and Greece. My assistants also told me that they had changed their view of the Greeks. I really enjoyed helping change that. To understand it: During last year’s broadcast of the Euroleague Final 4 for Kosovo television, one of the commentators was my partner on the national team and he was wearing an Olympiacos jersey with his name on it that I had given him and broadcast with it . This was something that no one in Kosovo would have expected a few years ago.”

On what he found in Kosovo: “I had two Montenegrins who were of Montenegrin origin but grew up in Kosovo and didn’t speak Albanian, only Serbian. There were some Serbs in the Serbian part of Kosovo that we could invite some of, but the Serbs in their community would have more difficulty accepting them than the Albanians. So we had children of Montenegrin origin. For those who understood, we conducted the training in English.

The conditions were…third world, the course had incredible holes. There were two stadiums together, one of which was completely burned down, it was a “corpse” and was put in a parking lot, and right next to it was the arena where we played. It was incredibly cold, it was very difficult inside the stadium, they tried to bring some air heaters for heating but to no avail. The players didn’t even know the basics of training, the coach came once and stayed away the rest of the time, the assistants didn’t know how to make videos, and according to a statistical analysis, they didn’t even know the basics.

We are talking about things that have been happening in Greece since the 70s. In fact, there was a player who a colleague told about Michael Jordan and he replied, “The only Michael I know is Michael Jackson.” They only knew the teams and players that were in the area. With only 3-4 names and they had played abroad, I was able to somehow communicate and we were able to establish contact with the others.”

On the question of whether this “destroyed” stereotypes in Kosovo: “The country is behind, I didn’t think it could be so behind. I didn’t think there could be so many armed people, I didn’t think they could be so comfortable with brute force incidents that would shock us. The stereotypes I “destroyed” concerned the way they saw the Greeks. I have made great efforts with the Kosovo Relations Office here to strengthen the dialogue between the two countries at the diplomatic and political levels as much as possible.

The “opening” I did was to show what our own basketball looks like, our own way of thinking and pass it on to them so that a “seed” for the future is planted here. However, I knew that no matter how hard I put in, I would find a wall. Many people said to me: “How is it possible that we cannot win Lithuania, a state with a population as large as ours?”

For their mentality: “They are fans of victory, like all Balkan countries. It’s unthinkable. We got the first away win in their history against Luxembourg and I think even Olympiacos fans weren’t so happy when they won the Euroleague. They were…drunk for three days. They gave their teams a day off, it was a national holiday, and they beat Luxembourg. Then we might have lost to Denmark and there was a risk of disaster. The whole situation was really very strange. For example, it was much better to beat Gibraltar than to draw with Iceland.

On the question of whether sport is a way out in Kosovo: “When they were recognized by FIBA ​​​​in 2015, they still talk about it today. It’s huge for her. They have an Olympic champion in judo, where dynamic sports suit them very well in terms of temperament and body type. Their national football team has a very large budget, with 19 of 21 players being foreign-born. They’re trying to do a pan-European 3×3, a pan-European U16-3. Category organizing, things that will put them on the “map” and Europe will hear that there is also a state called Kosovo.”

Regarding what he kept quiet about his presence there: “The only thing I didn’t win was money. What I retain are relationships with some people in an effort to somehow unite under basketball as a common language of communication. I also keep the experiences I have seen of how much these people want help and don’t even know how to accept that help. It’s impressive, it’s really like a time machine. It’s been many years. Although there is money, most of the population is incredibly underdeveloped when it comes to basketball and sports culture. It takes a lot of time, a lot of education and training to be able to pass this on to the grassroots.”

For the story he left behind: “It’s a story that I usually tell my friends, especially abroad, to show the level of preparation of this team, especially on a mental level.” We play practically all year round against Slovakia, who have players worth hundreds of thousands of euros . Whoever won went to the next stage. Behind closed doors, Covid, “bubble” in Pristina. It was a week of preparation, we gave scouting videos and scouting reports, we had morning training sessions, everything that could have been done. I knew it would be impossible for the children to digest the information.

For many of the national team’s children aged 25 to 27, it was their first time getting on a plane. I ask the whole team: “Do you think we are ready?” and they say: “Yes, coach, we have done the best preparation”, which is what everyone always says. So I asked our team’s main playmaker, who is a teacher and educated, which player he was marking. One guard of Slovakia was named Abraham and the other was named Krajicovic.

When I asked the young playmaker this, he was immediately enthusiastic. So the experienced ones from behind tried to tell him in a whisper, one saying one thing, another saying another. He couldn’t hear the boy well, so after waiting a few seconds and trying to understand what was being said to him as best he could, he said “Abramovic,” meaning both names. It was amazing.”

To purchase a potato picker player: “We ‘bought’ a player from his father who was 2.15 years old and had never caught a ball in his life. When he first came on the court, we gave him the ball, told him to put it in the basket, and he hit it because he didn’t know how else to put it. So we go to his father and tell him to come and train his son and he says, ‘No, who will help me get the potatoes out?’ My son is the only worker.”

So we asked him how much he wanted a worker, and in the end the association gave him 100 euros a month to get a worker and train his son. After two years, his son decided he liked the court better than basketball and left.