By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
The 2025/26 Basketball Champions League Final Four is just around the corner, with four teams gathering in Badalona ahead of the decisive weekend of the season. Defending champions Unicaja will face AEK in one semifinal, while Tenerife and Rytas will battle for the other ticket to the final.
Ahead of the tournament, all four head coaches appeared together at the traditional pre-Final Four press conference — Dragan Sakota for AEK Athens, Ibon Navarro for Unicaja, Txus Vidorreta for CB Canarias and Giedrius Žibėnas for Rytas Vilnius. Sakota touched on pressure, experience, motivation and the path AEK has taken to reach this stage.
Asked about Unicaja’s status as defending champions and favourites entering the semifinal, the experienced Serbian coach admitted that nobody truly wants that label.
“Believe me, if I won back to back I would say we are favourites. The role of the favourite is very difficult, so nobody wants to be it. On the other side, everybody believes that we can do it, also Malaga believe and they have reason for this. They have a good team, trophies behind. I would like to believe they are one click down than last year, and we are one click better. So, just to be more competitive game.”
Sakota also reacted to Navarro’s comments regarding AEK’s physicality being one of the team’s biggest strengths. Sitting next to the BCL trophy at the press conference, he insisted that words before the game ultimately mean very little.
“I would like to believe that what coach Navarro said is true, it means that we are a good team, but coaches will never say they are perfect, nobody is perfect. Words sometime can play a role, but everything is going to happen on the court. Trophies are a goal for everybody. You have couple of goals, to win the group, to qualify to the Final Four, but when you are here you have to be focused on how to win. We did it once, so we don’t have any kind of complex, if somebody is better, we gonna congratulate them.”
The veteran coach also spoke about AEK’s organizational growth and the similarities he sees with Unicaja’s long-term development.
“Many years I followed this team, everything they were doing long time before was amazing. I would like to believe we made a couple of steps and we are coming close to Malaga.”
At 73 years old and after decades in basketball, Sakota explained that his motivation today comes from a different place than earlier in his career.
“When you are young and are fighting for this, there is completely different attitude. Now is basically love for basketball. When you find a way, you build organization on this level that everything is easier than before, now I don’t have any kind of pressure to succeed, what is going to be with me and my family next day, so it makes me much more comfortable to prepare guys and come in the situation to fight for the trophy.There’s always motive, but I would lie if I said it’s the same like many years before. Something is different, but there’s always some kind of fire.”
Finally, Sakota also praised Lithuanian players, pointing to the examples he currently has in his roster with Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Lukas Lekavičius, while highlighting the similarities he sees between Lithuanian and Serbian basketball culture.
“I see some kind of similarity with Serbian basketball, it’s very easy to cooperate with Lithuanian guys, so I’m really happy I have them.”
AEK’s captain, Dimitris Flionis, also spoke about the growth of the team since last season’s Final Four appearance.
“We are more experienced this year. We added some guys and, together with the guys from last season, we developed as a team. We are more ready to claim the trophy. I really believe that playing outside of your city and your court, at this level, is not something that we think too much about. It’s a matter of readiness.”
AEK eliminated the hosts of the Final Four, Joventut Badalona, in a tough playoff series, and Flionis believes it helped his team take another step forward.
“Every year you add something new to your game, mostly in the way you see the game and how you feel when you are playing, how well you cooperate with your teammates. That’s the most important thing — to have a base, with a coach and teammates, and to build from there. Not to start every year from zero. Badalona was a tough series and it helped us a lot to grow. Now we have bigger experience.”