Mr. Panagiotis Angelopoulos statements following the victory against Efes
The President of Olympiacos BC spoke on camera for NERIT Sports following the victory against Anadolu Efes. Mr. Panagiotis Angelopoulos talked about the victory against the Turkish team that actually sealed qualification to the Euroleague play-offs for the reds for the 10th consecutive season, about Dusan Ivkovic, Stratos Perperoglou, Ioannis Papapetrou and Vangelis Mantzaris and about the game against CSKA Moscow that follows.
About the victory against Efes: "We feel proud. "Vindicated" is for greater goals. You feel vindicated if you make the Final Four, if you win it. But it's necessary to be in the play-offs, we are for ten years in a row among the top European teams, it's only us and Barcelona that have done that. We succeeded that tonight with a 'gut' victory as I would call it, without key players, without Spanoulis, Sloukas, Petway and Tsairelis. And those who were left to play gave all they had. It was one of those victories that you enjoy the most. We are all happy to win any game, but this victory tonight is an 'Olympiacos mentality' victory. Against a team like Efes, that has a very big budget, a great coach, great players, players that had been playing for the NBA, players that are heading for the NBA. They came here with a complete roster and don't forget that they are still fighting for the play-offs, they fight for the fourth place".
About the game against CSKA Moscow: "I'll be starting from the previous game that we lost, we lost with key players missing and we showed character, we showed that we are ready to battle no matter the circumstance. That's what we are going to do in Moscow, we are going to fight to get home court advantage".
About honoring Dusan Ivkovic and Stratos Perperoglou: "With Ivkovic we won the 2012 Euroleague, the most unexpected title, given the way the competition was organized. He has won another Euroleague with Olympiacos, he's the living history of Olympiacos, he cannot be coming back, even as an opponent and not get credit, not being honored. You cannot but honor the man that took us to the top of Europe. And about Stratos, he was for me the London MVP, no matter what Law and Spanoulis did there, I also told him that. He chose to continue his career elsewhere, he's a professional, we love him, Papapetrou guarded him and did a great job. All these are nice, but winning is better. What I enjoyed most tonight was Papapetrou's come back, this kid has been so unlucky and tonight we got a glimpse of how he used to be last season. I don't like talking about any particular player, but I would like to congratulate Mantzaris tonight, he was extraordinary, he played for those who weren't here as well, I was really impressed by him".
About the performance of the players who covered for those missing: "This is a team. Covering for absences is very hard, it's not simple. And what we tend not to think about is who we compete against. The budgets our competitors have, we are thinking about trying to win against CSKA in Moscow, a team with a budget of 45 million euro and we miss Spanoulis, we miss Sloukas and we say let's go and win to get home court advantage and we think it's something simple, we casually talk about it, it's not simple at all. If they make it, it's going to be epic."