Georgios Bartzokas: 'I would like to replay last EuroLeague semifinal' / News - Basketnews.com

Georgios Bartzokas would like to replay last year's semifinal game against Anadolu Efes if he could. His dream - retiring from coaching while being the head of Olympiacos.

Credit: Olympiacos BC Credit Olympiacos BC

Georgios Bartzokas will begin his fourth straight season with Olympiacos Piraeus this evening in the EuroLeague. The first year was stopped due to the pandemic, the second year the team was close to making it to the playoffs, the third year it marched all the way to the Final Four.

Olympiacos fans are now hoping for an even better season. Bartzokas himself understands that coaching such a club with such a passionate fanbase puts an expectation on everybody.

"When you are trusted by a huge club like Olympiacos, the owners, the people, and the wider public, you automatically want to make them happy. It is a great internal motivation for each of us to repeat or surpass a success so that everyone is happy," the coach told Esquire. "In the most practical sense, I think you need a few days of rest and once you feel the same desire to enter the field again, i.e. your workplace, the motivation is always there."

Bartzokas has been coaching teams for several decades now with hundreds of games to choose from but when he was asked if he would like to replay any of them, he chose last year's semifinal.

"Certainly, the one game I am thinking about is this year's Euroleague semifinal, because if we won it, we would have had a chance to play in the final with a very good chance [to win it]," Bartzokas told.

"I think the games I want to replay aren't so much about how lucky or unlucky we were or what mistakes we made. After all, mistakes are always made, no matter what we do," the coach explained. "It has more to do with how much, in the specific time period they took place, they cost me emotionally."

This is Bartzokas' second stint with Olympiacos. He has coached the team 10 years ago during the 2012-14 seasons, winning the EuroLeague in the very first of those seasons. Coincidentally, all the major trophies Bartzokas has won in his coaching career have come with the same club.

"I don't like changes in my life. My friends are the same as when I was a child, even my relationships with the opposite sex were never opportunistic and rushed," he said about his preferred way. "Ideally, I would like to coach a team for 25-30 years, which is obviously not possible."

"Eventually, I ended up changing teams very often because this is our profession and there is no other way to do it. Ideally, stopping doing this job while I'm at Olympiacos would be fantastic," Bartzokas shared. "You never know what life throws at you, but that's how I see it."

Olympiacos start their European journey today against FC Barcelona in Palau Blaugrana. The game is scheduled to start at 20:30 CET.

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