By Eurohoops Team / info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow will host Darussafaka Dogus and Andrey Vatutin highlights the game itself and explains what an elimination of the Euroleague Top16 means in front of Maccabi‘s… exit.
The president of CSKA, Andrey Vatutin knows very well how much can effect a European powehouse an elimination of the Euroleague Top16. CSKA faced it in 2010-11 and Maccabi is in front of the same situation. Vatutin talked about it on walla.co.il and Arale Weisberg, but started with a comment about the Russian-Turkey battle.
About the political situation between Russia and Turkey, before the game vs Darussafaka:
“It is a regular Euroleague game for us and we will try hard to win it as we always do. We don’t mix politics with basketball and we are sure that our fans will just support the team without any special thoughts about the opponents”.
In the season 2010-11, CSKA disqualified from the regular season. Which were your expectations that season, and when did you realize it was going wrong? I remember that there was a feeling that CSKA is about to bounce back in each and every week, but it never happened… Can you put your finger on specific moment that was harder to deal with, personally?
“The expectations were high as usual. Everything looked well in the beginning, we did not face any problems. Moreover, we had a nice American trip, beat Cleveland, becoming the first team to defeat an NBA team in the USA. It appeared that the tour has become one of the factors of our failure: we did not have enough time to recover and we lost our first Euroleague game – at home vs Milan. In the beginning of the season there were some worries about Holden’s physical condition (he was diagnosed with heart problems), Kaun had surgery in the summer and needed time to get his shape back. Khryapa played just three games in the Euroleague regular season – and at the time he was probably the best in Europe on his position. Siskauskas’ injury during the game against Panathinaikos in Athens was also important: we were leading and had a chance to improve in the standings but failed when Siska went down.
Probably the key moment (and very unpleasant for me) was our away loss to Valencia which actually routed us. This loss broke the team’s mentality. I think it was Valencia who “killed” us that season. Finally, we lost at Milan in even game so we had to fire Dule Vujosevic. I would like to mention here that we had no complaints about his professional qualities. He just couldn’t cope with the pressure that everyone has here in CSKA”.
Economically speaking: What was the meaning of that elimination? How much money did CSKA lose?
“For Maccabi the possible exit will be more painful because the Tel Aviv club sells many tickets and season tickets. Our loss was more in means of club’s image, we also lost confidence in ourselves for short term”.
Do you remember your feelings after the elimination was official? And – how did you manage to maintain the intensity of the players – as you had so many months to keep on playing, but only in Russian league and VTB?
– It was very difficult. But now, with years passing by, I see it all in calm manner. Yes, it was an experience that you could avoid, but at the same time it was a great lesson. We did not hang our hands down, we shook our coaching staff, continued to work on many aspects of club’s activities. I think the players saw the amount of work done by the management and they definitely felt personal responsibility for the failure. The main thing is not to fall down but to get up every time”.
Long after that elimination, you decided to hire coach Kazlauskas. What was the main reason to do that, after not having the challenge of Euroleague?
“We were working for the future. In fact, we had half a year to get used to each other and to prepare for the next season better”.
Winning the local titles – was, I guess, not obvious in the first place.. Was it sweeter than ever because of the journey you had?
“More than sweet. The Russian League title was taken in tough fight despite all the circumstances. I’d like to remind you that we lost a lot not only in Euroleague. We lost to almost every team in Russia at least once, we had 9 losses in 27 regular season games, we took just second place in the standings. Nobody expected us to take the gold, many people buried us, anticipating CSKA’s total failure. So the success was special for me. Overall the season seriously tested the character of everyone in our club, and we passed the examinations”.