Toliopoulos: “Spanoulis always had the eyes of a tiger, we are blessed to have these fans in Aris”

Vassilis Toliopoulos gave an interview to the official EuroCup site about Aris’ victory over Turk Telecom on Matchday 3 of the competition. The Greek guard referred to the Yellow-Black’s return to European competitions, his relationship with Giannis Kastritis, living with his childhood idol Vassilis Spanoulis at Olympiakos, but also how important it is for Greek basketball teams to have a positive presence in Europe.

“We have the honor of playing in a great team and their people wanted the team to return to European competitions. Every game is a celebration. They love supporting our efforts and I feel blessed to have these fans. For us, taking part in the Eurocup is a dream come true. We will give 150% of ourselves to keep getting better and compete. The EuroCup is a completely different level of speed than what I have been used to in the Greek league in recent years.

From the first moment I wanted to stay at Aris because I liked last year, I like the atmosphere in the team and I decided because of the fans and the coach. That’s why his stay on Mars was a priority for me.

Coach Kastritis really supports me. An impressive person on and off the pitch. He will be interested in you, he will ask you how you are, how you feel, what your thoughts are. Most importantly, he is a person you can talk to, which is why everyone on the team has a great relationship with him.

Playing with Vassilis Spanoulis made a childhood dream of mine come true. He was my idol and I really had a great time with him. It was something great because I saw his character on and off the field, how committed he was to winning and also his training methodology. The opponent didn’t matter, he was always there with the tiger’s eye and I really learned a lot from Vassilis.

We’ve seen Olympiacos reach the Final Four the last two years, and Panathinaikos is getting better this season. We have five Greek teams playing in Europe. It is very important for the country to be better in European competitions, to have teams in the EuroLeague and EuroCup and to compete with all these very good teams. I think it’s really good because they will get young kids in the gym so they can start playing basketball and that will be good for our national team too.” said Toliopoulos, among others.