Panathinaikos is hosting tomorrow AE Larissas in OAKA for the 3rd day of the Greek League and one more time the team will have to play without Vassilis Spanoulis (injured). This will be the first game for the Greek League with fans.
“AE Larissas is a young team that wants to go for the fast break, wants to run the open floor something that was obvious also in the game against AEK, with Karadolamis, Tsairelis and Mejia. It’s an athletic team”, states Itoudis, only to go further: “Regarding scoring Mejia and Francis are very important for Larissa. Sometimes we are going to see Francis playing low post, creating situations for his team from there. Mejia is an excellent scorer and also shooter. It’s something that we must pay attention to. Also, Larissa can play we “short” schemes with Francis and Karavanas playing at the same time for example and there are players playing the 4 position who are fighters like Papakostas or Brozos. Players that come from the bench to play and they are playing aggressively. Apostolidis is present as a play maker having the experience to control the rhythm and to manage the game. Matalon is coming from the bench. He also has more experience after spending time in Kolossos. And there is Lappas who is the most experienced. In defence beside man to man we expect to see also zone defence. I believe that it’s up to us to continue our pace. We’ll face a young team, but we want to be focused, the way we were in our previous games. We have different goals as teams with Larissa, but that doesn’t mean that we are not going to respect them. On the contrary, we’ll enter the game respecting our opponent, like every time”.
* History: Panathinaikos has never lost against AE Larissas in the past. The “score” is 18-0 for the greens.
