Papanikolaou: “Let’s stay focused on our goal because now everything counts”

Besides him George Bartzokasand the captain of Olympiakos, Kostas Papanikolaoumade statements during the departure of the mission for Istanbul and tomorrow’s (19/03, 19:30) match against Efes in the Euroleague.

The experienced Greek forward was mentioned the difficulties that will arise for the “red and whites” to face against the Turkish team, which, as he pointed out, is extremely talented in scoring, while it remains dangerous, since it is fighting for its entry into the play-ins.

The statements of Kostas Papanikolaou in detail:



For the game with Efes: “Happy Birthday. Happy Lent everyone. That’s the program. We have teams from many countries and they are sometimes forced to play in their own festivals, the same happens with us. That’s the process and we have to stay focused on our goal because now everything counts. We have a difficult game in Istanbul, at the home of Efes where we have many years to do a double. Let this be the year that breaks because it is a victory that we really need in view of the continuation”.

On the state of the team after the victory in the “eternal” derby: “The game against Panathinaikos is over. It’s a new week now. We are playing against a team that has great attacking talent. He has players who have tremendous scoring appeal. And just because they aren’t having their best year doesn’t mean they don’t have the talent to hurt or kill a team. We will have to be very focused on the defensive side, very dynamic in all aspects of the game and win the 50-50 phases. As I said before, they are a team that is struggling to get into the top ten in the play ins. So it’s a key match for them as well as for us.”