The two head coaches faced off in the 2015 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Championship Game.
Sfairopoulos, Laso meet again as Zvezda hosts Bayern
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Ioannis Sfairopoulos and Pablo Laso, two of the most esteemed coaches in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, are now overseeing two new projects. As such, when Sfairopoulos’s Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade (1-4) welcomes Laso’s FC Bayern Munich (2-3) to Stark Arena this Thursday evening (18:30 CET), it will be a good litmus test to judge where the two teams stand.
In the case of Laso, he took charge of Bayern over the summer and has been tasked with trying to turn the German side into one of the EuroLeague’s powerhouse clubs. Sfairopoulos, meanwhile, was parachuted in at Zvezda following a 1-3 start under now departed head coach Dusko Ivanovic, who has since landed at Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Sfairopoulos’s first game as Zvezda head coach
In Round 5, Sfairopoulos came ever so close to making the perfect start to his reign as Zvezda boss. Despite falling behind 17-2 to archrival Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade with 3:14 to go in the first quarter, the team responded brilliantly and went into halftime with the score tied at 42-42. Down the final stretch, however, Partizan’s Aleksa Avramovic and Zach LeDay made sure that it was their squad that grabbed an 88-86 victory.
Nevertheless, there were plenty of positive signs for Sfairopoulos’s Zvezda. On a night when eight players scored 7 points or more, one of the main highlights was the play of Yago dos Santos, who had 11 points and 5 assists. Under Coach Ivanovic, he managed just 4:09 of action, which came in a defeat to Virtus Segafredo Bologna in Round 4. Comparatively, Coach Sfairopoulos gave Yago just under 21 minutes of game time in the derby.
Looking ahead to Thursday's game, we should get a further glimpse of not only the sort of role that Dos Santos will enjoy, but also how fellow new signings Shabazz Napier, Milos Teodosic, Adam Hanga, Rokas Giedraitis and Joel Bolomboy are adapting to Sfairopoulos’s methods. Zvezda may have lost four straight games in the EuroLeague, but crucially it will be keen to get back on the right track after back-to-back losses to Partizan, having also lost to its archrival in the ABA League, 98-87, on Monday night.
Bayern looking to right the ship
Bayern, meanwhile, is looking to end its two-game losing streak in the EuroLeague after falling 98-59 at FC Barcelona and 67-76 against Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul in Rounds 4 and 5, respectively. Laso’s squad may be topping the standings in the German League, but it has had a stop-start beginning to the 2023-24 EuroLeague season.
Particularly on offense, Bayern is averaging a league-worst 70.6 points per game, which has been a big part of its problem. Last time out against Fenerbahce, only guard Sylvain Francisco reached double digits in points, while center Serge Ibaka was the only player to do so against Barca. Therefore, it will be important that Carsen Edwards, Leandro Bolmaro and others start to step it up offensively, starting on the road at Zvezda.
The history between Sfairopoulos, Laso
If we go back over eight years ago to the 2015 EuroLeague Final Four in Madrid, Spain, Sfairopoulos had led Olympiacos Piraeus to the championship game in his first season as a EuroLeague head coach. In European basketball’s deciding game, Laso’s Real Madrid was the opponent. The result? A 78-59 win for Los Blancos in the first-ever battle between Sfairopoulos and Laso on the EuroLeague sidelines.
Since then, they have come up against one another 12 more times, but it is Laso and his Real side that dominated matchups against Sfairopoulos’s Olympiacos (2014-18) and Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv (2018-22), with the Spanish coach having a 9-4 record against his Greek counterpart.
This Thursday night, Sfairopoulos and his new Zvezda squad have the chance to build on the club’s 5-4 all-time record against Bayern in a game that could go either way. Zvezda will be able to lean on its passionate support inside Stark Arena, so will that make the difference? We’ll have to tune in to find out!