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Vassilis Spanoulis said that on Sunday (24/11) the National team will have more players at its disposal than Panathinaikos and Olympiacos, thus strengthening the total of the official favourites.
The national basketball team will face the Great Britain (21/11, 21:30 and 24/11, 18:30) for the EuroBasket 2025 qualifiers and the federal coach Vasilis Spanoulis made his first statements ahead of the matches.
The federation coach said that on Sunday (24/11) the “official favourites” are likely to have additional players at their disposal, meaning that there could be further reinforcements from the Greek squad of Panathinaikos and Olympiakos. Giannoulis Lorentzakis, Naz Mitrou-Long and Dimitris Moraitis are in the initial call-ups from the roster of the two centuries, however as confirmed by the coach of the national team, Lorentzakis will not be available for Thursday’s game.
The statements of Vassilis Spanoulis:
“It’s not a risk for me to choose to have these guys here. It’s a big motivation. The windowing process has produced quite a few guys who have been in the final dozen of major tournaments. They’ve all proven they deserve to be here. It’s an opportunity for the kids here at the windows to show their worth. The door of the National is open to everyone. We all make mistakes, right now there are some who might not be in the next window if they don’t play well and guys who aren’t here, might play in the next window. They are children who must show their value and help the National team in the next matches through my process and philosophy. We have built something very good and every player has to have the winning mentality and philosophy that we have put in place.
These guys deserve to be here, I judged the two months they’ve been playing to be here. One may consider it right, another may consider it wrong. It’s my decision. I have a lot of faith in the children who are here. I always believe in my choices. We have to work in the next two-three days, show the best image we can and get the result.
Great Britain is a very athletic team, forget the old days when some teams didn’t have “teams”, we used to say Holland, England don’t play basketball. We see that basketball is now globalized. England are a very good team and we have to beat them. We have to work well, all the children understand our philosophy, many children were also in the summer. It is always a matter of homogeneity. Beyond the result, the windows also have the meaning of development, the opportunity to show children and their potential.
There is a chance that we will have a different line-up on Sunday, there is a chance that other players will be called up. We also thank Olympiakos and Panathinaikos who really help and embrace the national team, to send the players. Of course the players also have a huge appetite to be in the National team and we won that in the summer. We’ll see on Thursday to see if he’ll be in the next game.”
The depth chart of the national team without Giannoulis Larentzakis in detail
- PG: Vassilis Toliopoulos, Dimitris Moraitis, Vassilis Mouratos, Stelios Poulianitis, Yannis Karakostas
- SG: Michalis Lountzis, Naz Mitrou-Long
- SF: Homeris Netzipoglou, Neoklis Avdalas
- PF: Nikos Hougaz, Yiannis Kouseloglou, Lefteris Mantzoukas
- C: Vangelis Zougris, Giorgos Tanoulis, Antonis Karagiannidis
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