A typical THY Euroleague Final Four tip-off took place behind the official Press Conference of the tournament at the Ciragan Palace. The panel consisted of the Mayor of Constantinople Kadir Topbas, the Chairman of the Turkish Airlines Executive Committee Hamdi Topcu, the President and CEO of Detur, Firuz Barbaros Baglikaya, the Euroelague Basketball CEO and President Jordi Bertomeu, the President of the Turkish Basketball Federation Tugray Demirel, Zeljko Obradovic and Dimitris Diamantidis for Panathinaikos and to represent the rest of the teams Jonas Kazlauskas and Adrei Kirilenko for CSKA Moscow, Dusan Ivkovic and Vassilis Spanoulis for Olympiakos, Xavi Pascual and Erazem Lorbek for Barcelona.
Jordi Bertomeu made reference to the rise of interest in the Final 4, stressing that this year it is to be transmitted to 174 countries, 650 Media representatives have been accredited and 15 million visitors are expected at the Euroleague official internet site.
Zeljko Obradovic stated initially: “I am very happy to be here for yet another season. I am sure that it will be a great Final 4 since 4 very good teams are participating. We will try our best. It is really a great pleasure for Panathinaikos to be back here once more”.
The comparison to his first Euroleague title 20 years ago, again in Constantinople came to the surface yet again, as a journalist named it a miracle back then and then proceeded to ask if Panathinaikos is ready for yet one more miracle: “Yes… That would be nice. We have a good team… We have a very good team but we are up against another very good team. Our focus though is on only this game, the semi-final”.
In the conversation… the economical crisis, since the presence of many Greek fans for the Final 4 came up: “The last few years there is an economical crisis. Many countries are facing similar issues. For us, but also for Olympiakos the fact of us being here at the Final 4 is a huge success. The fans always support us and it is a very important element for our team. It is a great “plus” their presence here but anyhow we know all too well that we are not going on to an easy encounter across from such a great opponent like CSKA Moscow”.
Dimitris Diamantidis also declared happy to be participating in yet another Final 4 with Panathinaikos and added: “I am sure that the crowd will enjoy 4 really tough clashes filled with show time moments. It is a second consecutive time to be here, we are facing a great team, CSKA Moscow. We must find responses on court and give it our all in order to qualify”.
The Panathinaikos captain was questioned about the experience of competing in Turkey seeing that the Greens came up against Fenerbahce/Ulker during the season:
“Playing in a full court is always a positive thing. The fans were very eager supporters of their team and it was a very beautiful stadium. The Final 4 though, will be a totally different thing, since each team will have its own fans and will drive strength from them”.
The next question was about Panathinaikos and CSKA Moscow’s two previous match-ups during the regular season: “We met up twice on court during the regular season and were defeated on both occasions. It’s a done deal, it is in the past and we have analyzed what went wrong. We want to be ready to correct the mistakes we made during the regular season and remedy any issue that our opponent might lay-out for us at any given moment throughout the game”.
