By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Turkey coach Ergin Ataman talked about the upcoming EuroBasket Final against Germany Sunday (14/9), his confidence that his team will prove its superiority on the court, a controversial social media post and the reasons he doesn’t feel any stress ahead of this historic clash.
Here’s what Ataman said on:
Turkey’s advantage over Germany:
“Our biggest advantage is that we played so far very important games against big teams. Serbia, Latvia, Greece. We play with the same strategy in every game that we’ll use tomorrow also. We won’t do anything special. Our advantage is that we play like a team, we do everything like a team.”
Facing the reigning world champion Germany:
“We have a lot of respect to the German team. They showed their capacity in the World Cup, winning it.They’ve very good playres.They’ve played together many years. They are unbeaten. I believe my team is better right now, in this moment and we’re ready to win the game.”
His expectation about officiating:
“We expect the officiating to be focused, concentaated and not make a big mistake.This is basketball and, like the players, the referees sometimes make mistakes. I hope my plaeyrs will make fewer mistakes and referees will make fewer mistakes. I don’t care who wil be the referees but they must know that these are the two best teams in the tournament. The team that deserves and plays better should win the cup without any effect from the officiating.”
Stress and pressure ahead of the Final:
“Five minutes ago they told me that everybody has big stress and pressure, especially in our guys in Federation. I told them that I had this stress maybe before my first EuroLeague Final. After that I didn’t have any stress. This is a basketball game. I try to coach my team in the best way. I also believe my players won’t have big stress.
While we were coming to the press conference, we joked with Cedi Osman that we have the experience from playing in the finals between Panathianikos and Olympiacos. Atmosphere, big stress, big rivalry. For us this kind of a game isn’t stressful, after big experience we had in finals especially in Athens.”
How does this EuroBasket contribute to the rise fo Turkish basketball:
“It”s very important for Turkish nasketball. Turkish clubs have done incredible jobs in the EuroLeague but unfortunately the national team didn’t have any success after 2001 and 2010. Tomorrow it’ll be different. We lost in these two finals. But tomorrow… I don’t like to lose in the final, I like to win. If i’m in the final, I’ll win.”
How does coaching the national team improves him as coach:
“All people everyday can learn something. It’s the same for me. Everyday with every group I can learn something. Maybe, you can say it’s ego, maybe it’s the reality: The last years I’m the best coach in Europe. I don’t care which team I’m coaching. I’m doing the same job in the clubs I’ve been working. Everytime we’ve won, I won European cups. The only difference for me is that in my club i need to talk in english and now I talk my language. My english aren’t perfect so now my players understand me more easily.”
“This is social media and social media is very dangerous. Why ? Because sometimes it’s in the control of some guys who don’t have experience.I heard about this two hours ago, our president told me about this. They made this post last night around two o’ clock. Nobody knew about that. Ater the federation found out, they immediately released the person they made the post, deleted the post, and apologized.I completely agree that it’s not a correct post. Unfortunately this sometimes happens in social media. I dont’t think there is a big problem. Yesterday it was very fair also off the court withGreek fans and Turkish fans. OK, maybe sometimes there are some political problems between the countries but the two federations have good relations. The players also.
It was one person who made this late at night maybe sith some emtoions. They sent him to Turkey. I have many frinedds in Greece and I know they are upset because they lost. After we won this historic game, I didn’t show excessive happiness and didn’t show my two fists out of respects for my friends in Greece. But I’m ready to do this tomorrow when i will win the cup.”