Aleksandar Todorov: We entered as a wild card and now we are champions

Aleksandar Todorov

25-03-2009 21:51

Rilski Sportist head coach Aleksandar Todorov:

"I want to congratulate Fersped Rabotnicki for their fair play and all of my friends from Macedonia. Congratulations for all 11 of my players, as well as my assistants Petar Klechkov and Zlatko Janakievski, who was with the team for the last 5 days. I also want to congratulate club president Petar Georgiev, who gave me the opportunity to work with these guys for the last 7 months.

As for the game - it was very tough, but we knew it wouldn`t be easy and a few baskets at the end would decide it. As Gruev said, it wouldn`t have been unfair if Rabotnicki had lifted the cup either. I am very proud. This is a real fairy tale - we entered as a wild card and now we are champions.

The home court turned out a big factor, but you saw that in those tight games we had the proper mentality in the final minutes. All of our games in Bulgaria are like that and that gives us the chance to improve. I want to point out several factors for our success: to have a good team, you need to have good players; also, we have great organisation, people here are devoted to what they are doing and provide great conditions for us; and last but not least - the support by our home crowd in Samokov, which was a really big factor for our wins these last two days."