Experience in the upper echelons of the EuroLeague is the calling card of Sfairopoulos, who split his eight seasons in the competition between Olympiacos Piraeus and Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv.
"It's not easy to come in the middle of the season to a team," he says. "Hopefully, you have the experience to adjust to the team, from one side, and from the other to put your own stuff to improve the team's game."
His career record in the EuroLeague before joining Zvezda was 132-96, which breaks down to 76-46 with Olympiacos and 56-50 with Maccabi. He guided Olympiacos to runner-up finishes at the 2015 and 2018 Final Fours. Taking over Maccabi when it had a 1-6 record early in the 2018-19 season, Sfairopoulos led the team to a 14-16 record, one win short of the playoffs. A year later, Maccabi was in fifth place at 19-9 when the pandemic cut short the 2019-20 season.
Zvezda was 1-3 when Sfairopoulos arrived in late October and has gone 2-3 in the month since, those three defeats coming by a total of 12 points. He and Zvezda will try to even their record together on Friday when they host EA7 Emporio Armani Milan.
"For me, my teams have to play good defense, to disorganize the game of the opponent, and of course to take advantage of the open court to play with speed on offense," Sfairopoulos says. "We want to play faster to involve all the players in the game and to get from everybody the best that he can give.
"I trust the players that we have here. The squad is really talented. We just have to coordinate and synchronize our game."