Zeljko Obradovic spoke to euroleague.net in a video interview about the final four, his players and how special is for him to play in this final 4 and this particular semifinal in Berlin: “First of all I have some players that will play for the first time in a Final 4. For seven of my players this will be the first time in a Final 4, so they are also without experience they don’t know what it means to be and to play in a Final 4. But I know they will play with big motivation. During the last days everybody talks just about final 4, so this mean that they really like to play and I hope they will be ready.
I believe for everyone of us, coaches and players the most important competition is Euroleague and everybody likes to be over there, because all the people that like basketball will be focused on the final four. It’s a competition that everybody likes to play and every year target for many many teams, many players and many coaches is to arrive and be at the final 4.
I believe the more important is to understand is that it’s just one more game between two big clubs and a great opponent like Olympiakos. Something we must know is that we must play good if we want to win the game. So everything is important. Every coach and team they will try to prepare in the best possible way, to surprise the opponent team, but I believe in this level it’s almost impossible.
They play good, even for them there are a lot of players that go for the first time to the final 4. But they know to play basketball in every position they have good players and they play as a team, something that is very very important. They are really very good team.
For us is a little bit different. We had one month after the play offs, so we had many many days to think about it and to get ready to be over there. But like I said everyone of us try to prepare some new things and we’ll see it will be for sure very very interesting.
Every year everybody says that it was difficult and next year it will be more difficult. It is something that will not change. I believe that Euroleague is a great competition we have many good teams and something that is good is that before the beginning of Euroleague every year minimum 16 teams out of the24 say that their target is to go to the final 4. This mean is a good competition and small details are the ones who will decide who will go to the final 4.
Every team and every club want to have good atmosphere and good chemistry. We care really about every player that first of all to be good person and afterwards good player, because we don’t want to have any kind of problems in our team. I must say that I am very happy because this year we play very good and one of the reasons is that we have good atmosphere in the team.
Everybody will have big motivation, that’s for sure. This is the competition that everybody likes to play. This competition is something that is really very very important. This is one game and in one game everything is possible. It’s different than a play off game, because let’s say there you think about three games. When you have one game some players may have more inspiration, they will play one excellent game, so we must be ready for everything.
Everytime we play against Olympiakos is a special game. So can you imagine now that it’s the final4 and it’s opportunity to go to the final of Euroleague? Years and years we play here all the time, many times we played for the cup, for the play offs, finals, during the season we have many games and really for me personally and I believe for each one of my players I believe that this is a special game. Now, to play in a final 4 let’s say it’s a little bit more special.
