Check out what the coaches and players are saying ahead of Round 6 of the 2025-26 EuroLeague season
Pregame quotes, Round 6: 'Maccabi has players with top-level talent'
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Wednesday, October 22
Maccabi Rapyd Tel Aviv vs. Real Madrid (20:05 CEST)
Oded Kattash, Maccabi head coach
"Real Madrid is a lot like Olympiacos. I think they’re healthier than the Greeks and have a deeper roster. It’ll be a tougher and more intense game. The Spaniards are an excellent defensive team. They don’t have many weaknesses — their size and dominance inside have been tough for us since the start of the season. We’ll have to deal with that collectively, and it’ll require a lot of aggression.
"The last loss was painful mainly because of how it happened. But that’s part of the job. It’s not going to be easy — we’re not the favorites — but of course, we really want to win. It’s still early in the season; even if we lose, the league won’t slip away. It’s a very competitive and long league, but regardless, we want to win."
Roman Sorkin, Maccabi forward
"A tough game awaits us. Real Madrid is a very good team with a high-quality roster. We’re coming off two very painful losses where we could’ve done better. We learned from those mistakes and now we’re coming to win."
Jeff Dowtin Jr., Maccabi guard
"Real Madrid is a great team — it’s exciting to play against them. We prepared well; we watched a lot of their videos. They have very experienced players like Campazzo, great guards overall, and excellent big men. We have to execute properly on defense, stay focused the whole time, and stick to the game plan."
Sergio Scariolo, Real Madrid head coach
"We finally had a couple of days to practice with contact and energy. We had not been able to do it for some time and I think that helped the team to have a good performance. I think we are ready to play an efficient, solid game against an opponent that has a lot of scoring and that also gets a lot of steals. In that sense, we have to be very careful with turnovers. Maccabi has players with top-level NBA talent like Lonnie Walker or Jeff Dowtin, who have a main role in the team, but also has a very open playing style, with five players with a lot of mobility and other useful players like Hoard, Sorkin, Blatt... After losing all of its home games, this team won't be willing to lose again so we have to be ready because it will be a really demanding game."
Gabriel Deck, Real Madrid forward
"We are surely facing a difficult game, as every road game. We will try to do things right on the road to fight for the victory. Maccabi has the need to get home wins and all of its players will give 100%, so we expect a very tough game. We have to do our things well, get better game by game and try to win on the road. A win against Maccabi would give us a lot of confidence in the world we have been doing. We hope to live up to our standards tomorrow and be focused for 40 minutes. We have a lot of good things and have very good moments in our games, offensively and defensively, but also ups and downs that we will surely fix throughout the season, as games go by. I think we are in the right track. We have a good test tomorrow to see if we can do things well on the road."
Thursday, October 23
LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne vs. Dubai Basketball (19:30 CEST)
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Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv vs. AS Monaco (20:05 CEST)
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FC Barcelona vs. Zalgiris Kaunas (20:30 CEST)
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EA7 Emporio Armani Milan vs. Valencia Basket (20:30 CEST)
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Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade vs. Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz (21:00 CEST)
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Friday, October 24
Anadolu Efes Istanbul vs. Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul (19:30 CEST)
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Virtus Bologna vs. Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens (20:00 CEST)
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Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade vs. Paris Basketball (20:30 CEST)
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FC Bayern Munich vs. Olympiacos Piraeus (20:45 CEST)
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