Sfeiropoulos: “I may be in Efes – Bartzokas was rightfully voted the best of the year”

The possibility of taking over East Ephesus next season expressed the Yannis Sfeiropoulos!

The Greek coach was a guest on his “Instant Replay” show OK Web Radio with Yiannis Lampiris and talked about the possibility of being on the Turkish team’s bench, for their Final Four pairings Euroleaguebut also the well-deserved winning of the award for the coach of the year by George Bartzokas.

On the fact that both EuroLeague finals in which he was with Olympiacos were at the home of the opponents: “It’s not often that you play a final at your opponent’s home ground. It was fateful that it should be so, but nevertheless we tried our best. Real, in 2015 when they got it, had 20 years to get it and had lost 2 finals in the previous years. In 2017, Fenerbahce had 3 years of Obradovic, they had been to three Final Fours and didn’t get it, but they played the 4th in Istanbul, so again they had home advantage. Both teams were at their peak then“.

For the Olympiakos semi-final with Monaco: “Every match is special. And in the regular season it’s special, whether it’s home or away, but the Final Four games are completely different from everything else. They are knockout games and have another meaning. Of course, for both teams, the analysis of the games played between them in the regular season will count, and certainly both teams have things to see, positive and negative, when analyzing these games. Nevertheless, in these matches the personality of the players counts first of all, the mental readiness of each team, how ready the players are to follow their plan, certainly the experience from the Final Four and certainly the luck factor , because a bad moment in matches decided in the final can play its part“.



For Monaco: “He doesn’t have Final Four experience, but he’s in the mood, with eating comes appetite. In theory they have no pressure because they have achieved their goal of being there. He is like Cinderella, he enters with less pressure and stress to win the trophy. They are of course one of the richest teams, but they have no pressure and that is the most dangerous. Also, Monaco is a very athletic team, they play a lot with their athleticism and that counts in a semi-final. Olympiacos is a more complete team, which has played the best basketball all year. He has great homogeneity, faith in the plan, he has been implementing it all these years with the philosophy of coach Bartzokas and his staff. They are two different teams in terms of how they play on the field“.

On whether Monaco is the most difficult match-up for Olympiakos: “These are not easy games, but they are completely different from the regular season. The head-to-head wins may be 5-4 in favor of Monaco, but it shows that the teams are so close that many small details will decide the final result. I believe that Olympiacos excels in experience. It has more experienced players, who have won the Euroleague, who have been to the Final Four and know what it’s like. That’s what I think will count in the semi-final, not that it means he has any advantage. All teams in a Final Four have a 25% chance“.

For the key point of the match: “It has a guard like all teams, but I think Monaco’s advantage is its athleticism and that is what Olympiacos should match for me. All its players are very athletic, both those who start and those who come off the bench. They certainly play with this athleticism, which means that they can control the pace of the game, that they put their bodies, that they jump higher on rebounds, that they put their hands and make deflections. Athleticism, speed and agility are what Olympiacos must strive for. If we analyze the way Olympiacos play in terms of tactics, they are more of a team than Monaco. He plays more as a team, with better chemistry and better orientation on the field. Monaco has the players who on their good day can kill you one on one“.

For the other semi-final of the Final Four 2023 between Real and Barcelona: “It is a traditional Spanish derby, a civil war and of course when these teams play such games it requires a lot of commitment from the players and to bring out a lot of tension from them. They always have a rivalry between them, a clasico that both teams want to win, it’s a matter of prestige, culture, history in Spain, it’s a demanding game for them too. In terms of the competition, I think Barcelona have stepped up and in the last month they are playing their best basketball of the whole year. It is a very full team in all positions, a tough team, matches with Barcelona are difficult, whether you win them or lose them. They have occupancy in all positions.

Real did not start the regular season well, and neither did the playoffs. After the episode with Partizan, we saw a different Real in the other 3 games, a Real that really showed their potential, as if all the pressure they had to qualify went away with this episode. From there, they did what they can do very well on the field. They have experience, they have the new blood, they have tall people, they have short people, they have everything. The point for them was to get on the right track. It is a matter of course and who will be more ready to play this game, to fight it and who wants it more“.

For Giorgos Bartzokas: “Congratulations to George, he really deserved it. Olympiacos consistently played the best basketball throughout the year and was rightly voted the best coach of the year. I think that Greek coaches have reached quite high, in many teams, in many countries. I hope that it will continue with the new generations of coaches who will be at a high level and will be able to continue the path that all Greek coaches have in Greece and abroad“.

On where he will be in the new season: “We don’t know yet, we’ll see where we end up. There is a possibility that I will be in Ephesus, but we will see, I don’t know the developments yet, things are not over yet. For now, in the summer we will do a camp in Skiathos. We are making an effort to breathe basketball into the island and give the children the joy of seeing players they see on TV, have fun, learn the secrets of basketball and leave nice memories of their basketball years“.