Next stop, Pionir: the dream lives
It is real pleasure to talk again with all of you fans after we finished first phase of the competition with success. There were a lot of thrills during the regular season of the Euroleague. From the very beginning, armed with our experience from last season, we were motivated to play at the highest level. Our task was to play good enough to catch a chance to continue our fantastic Euroleague story from the previous season - and to provide six more great nights to those who shared both joy and sadness with us - our true fans. I think we played consistently good all the time this regular season, even though there were dramatic victories in the last seconds just as there were losses at the buzzer that made us all sad and angry. But all the time we believed in ourselves and the result was that we won almost all of the important games, including one with CSKA in Moscow. That was the incredible performance that opened our door to the Top 16. But victories in sport last as long as news in the papers - only for one day.
The last days of December and first one in January were a time for celebrating holidays, but we players had less time for relaxing. Of course, we had some brief time to see our families and other persons dear to us, but in Partizan, it is kind of a tradition to spend the holidays together. It is part of our relationship and I am sure everybody can see that with our chemistry on the court. It makes me happy to see and feel our friendly working relationship on the court. If you are spending as much time with your teammates as we do, that must show in the game. I do think it is our big quality and advantage. We are proud of it.
It is nice to look back and be proud because we reached the Top 16 again, but it is also interesting to see what's going on in the new round. Our group is pretty heavy, just like other three. We are together with Unicaja which is one of the best teams in the Spanish League. Lottomatica played excellent in the Euroleague, managing to reach second place in their group. But we were all unlucky to be drawn with the heaviest third-seeded team, Panathinaikos. The Greek champs have much bigger potential than they showed so far this season and they are a regular candidate to be Euroleague champ again. Athens, Malaga and Rome: from the point of view of a tour operator, it looks attractive, but from a sports point of view, it's an extremely heavy itinerary. Partizan was a fourth seed and it cannot be said that we are among the favorites. I know it would be real surprise to everyone to see us in the quarterfinals again.
We failed on our first Top 16 step in Athens after we played excellent for 20 minutes. Pao is not in its best shape, but our old friend Nikola Pekovic buried our hopes. He played like he did a season ago in Partizan. He had great help from another old friend of ours, Dusan Kecman. We were helpless in the second half, but I think our game with Panathinaikos did not change anything. Our goal is to win three home games and try to book a road victory. Athens was not in those plans. Malaga and Rome are cities where we could do that. But the game in Athens showed us all the right direction. We can beat anyone if we could play like we did in first half against Panathinaikos. It is not easy but there is no other way.
Our story began in Athens and it is expected to end in Rome. Between those two games, however we shall meet our opponents in Pionir Arena. And our fans are eager to see three big games. I believe we are able to make miracles and continue our Euroleague dream. So let the dreaming continue!
POSTED BY
Milenko Tepic, Belgrade
DATE:
Monday, February 02, 2009