The Hellenic Basketball Federation presented the national team's new coach, Ilias Zouros on Monday and he immediately set the target high, suggesting Greece should make the Eurobasket final this September.
Zouros said that this national team is the best side Greek basketball has ever seen and added he felt under no pressure: "The national team is the biggest challenge of my career, because this is the greatest Greek team."
"This is a responsible position and the team is at its highest quality level, but we are here to keep it high and take it even higher," he said.
His first mission on the Greek bench will be the European Basketball Championship this September in the courts of Lithuania, that are familiar to the new Greece coach as his full-time job is at Zalgiris Kaunas.
"We are not going to hide. We believe we have the capacity and we want to get onto the podium," said federation president Giorgos Vassilakopoulos, with Zouros going one better: "The aim for us it to get as high as possible, to go for a medal. When we say we just go for qualification to the Olympic Games, it is as if we do not believe in ourselves. We want to make it to the final."
The new Greece head coach would like to have Dimitris Diamantidis and Thodoris Papaloukas on board, too. They have indicated they may not be part of the national team any longer.
"We first have to see the players we have available. Diamantidis and Papaloukas are great players and we want them. There will be discussions there is no hurry. I also watch the younger players. There was always a mix of younger and older players in the national team. It would be good for us to up our pace a little along with the brains we already have in the team," explained Zouros.
source: SPORTINGREECE
