Bartzokas: “It’s fantastic what happened to the seven foreigners to become a better team than last year”

He spoke about the willingness of his players before the first game in the EuroLeague against Barcelona (October 7th, 9:30 p.m., Novasports Prime and LIVE from Sportish) and the new additions to the squad that have upgraded the team, he spoke at his media day Olympiakos the coach the Erythrolekos, Giorgos Bartzokas.

The Greek coach also spoke about moving to the Basket League with the 6+1 foreigners, but also about the expectations raised after last year’s successful season.

The statements of Giorgos Bartzokas in detail:

Are you satisfied with the level of preparation of the team now that the official games start?

“It would be impossible for us to do better, you know we basically all train together for 10 days. But based on the data we haven’t lost a game so far, we show we’re at a good level. And we still have two training sessions to start the season in the best possible way. I think that all teams will have homogeneity problems at the beginning.”

Is it better to start now or later against teams like Barcelona who are competitive with Olympiacos?

“I don’t think there is an answer to that. If we win we say it was better, if we lose it was worse. You can’t say that. You have to take the schedule as it is and prepare for it I don’t think we’re rivals with Barcelona either, we’re rivals with all the Euroleague teams for every game we play.

It’s premature and risky to think we’re at the level of Barcelona, ​​who have four times our budget. In the stadium we will show whether we are on the same level, worse or better. I think uhFrom what I’ve seen of the team, how they’ve been working in training and friendlies so far, we’re optimistic that we’ll be quite competitive.”

Last year at this time we said it would be a miracle for Olympiakos to beat Barcelona, ​​it turns out in practice it’s not, this year we say it can win, isn’t that easy?

“That’s the danger. Everyone expects us to win when we don’t. It takes a lot to win it from either team. It requires concentration, it requires mental, physical, tactical readiness and often the circumstances within a game also play a role, the day of the players. I don’t think we should see it that way. Let’s focus on the first game. If we want to make an overall assessment, I think we will be a team that will fight in every game, that will do our best. Our squad consists of 13 players who can play at this level. They’ve been tested and they can play and what’s left is that they play well together.”

How will this year’s Euroleague compare to last year?

“My feeling is that the experience that all clubs have in the Euroleague as there are no newcomers, only Virtus Bologna and Partizan. They all have a level of organization in all parameters to make a good team, good scouting, big budgets , good coaches, good players. Maybe even better and tougher than last year’s tournament. We have to see it in the games too. Often teams that you don’t expect are better than last year and others are worse who can have all the guarantees, to do well . We hope to be among the positive surprises and not the negative ones. During this period the whole club has been working to be a team that will try to be better than last year.”

Black Case, how do you want to manage him, last year you had a seventh foreigner in the Euroleague, he was out of the league this year and how much will you use him in the league?

“Fantastic news for us with the seven foreigners. We’re going to play 80 games, and you know a 12-man roster is tough hands. Tarik Black, although he wasn’t in the Rhodes tournament, he’s an excellent player, I’ll say that now and you’ll see it in the games. He will be good for our team in the long run, certainly very good.”

Compared to last year the bar is raised because of the double and his presence in the Final-4, does that make this year more difficult?

“No doubt about it and I will try to lower the expectations in public opinion around the team as much as possible. Not as a policy or as a tactic. You can’t say that because last year we went to the last four start we this year and we should be again all teams to enter the eight potentially i think 16 of the 18 teams can easily enter the eight and you understand the difficulty of the task.

I suggest to everyone that we just look at the game that is ahead of us and when 3/4 of the Euroleague is over we will get a better picture of the team and also the other teams to see where we stand. It is currently endangered. Let me say that without a doubt we will try to win the league and the cup in Greece. We have the team, we are in Olympiacos, but in the Euroleague we go from game to game.”