By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Barcelona faces Olympiacos on Thursday and coach Georgios Bartzokas spoke on COSMOTE TV in Greece about his old team, Vassilis Spanoulis, as well as his growth as a coach during tough times.
The coach was asked to do a comparison between Juan Carlos Navarro and Vassilis Spanoulis: “Navarro is different person from Spanoulis. You won’t hear him as much in the lockers. He’s an incredible player, the first scorer in Euroleague history and a legend of Barcelona.”
“I love Vassilis. I come from Maroussi BC and he was a little kid when he came in the team. He’s grown the way I expected him to. Managing such a player with such worth is always difficult in every sport. The only thing that I regret is that we weren’t able to win a championship together, apart from the Euroleague and the Intercontinental Cup. I wish him the best.”
“The verbal attack by the fans in the parking of Olympiacos‘ arena sure played a role for me to resign from the team”, admitted the coach for the way he left the team in 2014 after losing a cup game against Panathinaikos, “as well as the loss to Panathinaikos“.
Bartzokas’ outbursts on the court are quite common, but he has worked a lot on staying calm during adversity, as he says: “I reflect on my mistakes with Olympiacos, Lokomotiv and even Barcelona every day. It takes acknowledgement and discipline. To be calm when things are tough. I’m very sentimental and that probably doesn’t do me good.”