Shay Shtriks: The new system proved that it′s almost perfect

On 15th of January will be played the last games of the first phase in EUROHOLD Balkan League. Two matches in each group will decide the final standings and the teams that will go on and qualify for Top 6. Already four of the names are known - BC Galil Gilboa and BC Levski from group A and BC Rilski Sportist and KK Teodo from group B, but there are still two places left. A few days before the decisive games the Sports Director of EUROHOLD Balkan League Mr. Shay Shtriks had this to say for the season so far:

"At the beginnig I was a little afraid with the new system but it proved that it is almost perfect because from four games on January 15th each one has some influence for the same day and for the future. Ok, we don′t have Euroleague level of basketball but we have very interesting competition which gives chance to almost every team to win every game.

15th of January is a test case for EUROHOLD Balkan League because we need to see that all the teams will play fair and I′m sure that the referees will be perfect like they are from the start of the season. Already there are some calls from some people but we stopped everything and we know that the referees will do the job. The teams need to play and those that win will go to the Top 6. This will be very interesting but also the second group with the last four teams will still give a chance for the people to play basketball. In most of the leagues the teams that are not qualified for Top 16 or whatever they have, they stop to play international games. We in EUROHOLD Balkan League continue to give them possibility to play with teams from other countries until the month of April.

We don′t like to guess what will happen in the last games. We have prepared four different schedules for all the cases and those that win will deserve to go to Top 6. The system proved that nobody can′t think about giving some game or play less serious and the teams that don′t play as serious as they should in some games during the season, they may pay for this in the evening of 15th of January. We showed again that we chosed the right system and we hope that 15th of January at 9 o′clock in the evening the teams that will go to Top 6 will go there in the right way and those that will play in the Last 4 will also understand that they need to improve for the next season.

We are very happy with what we are seeing until now and this is important because a lot of people started to judge if EUROHOLD Balkan League is a good project. I can say that it′s not a good project, it′s an excellent one.

There are a lot of teams that were thinking that they will play international competitions until the month of April but they already started playing only in their local league in December. It′s good to practice and play local games but it′s always better to have international matches as well. We have place for everybody but only for the serious people."