ORADEA (Basketball Champions League) – CSM Oradea veteran guard Branko Mirkovic spent several years of his career in Bulgaria, including a very successful 2009/10 season with Lukoil Academic Sofia. On Tuesday night he returns to the Bulgarian capital, for the first leg of the Qualification Round 2 tie that will decide which of the two teams secures the coveted berth to the Basketball Champions League.

"We don’t have to win pretty, we have to win. We will have to play basketball as Jose Mourinho would play it, the result comes above everything else." - Mirkovic

“It must be something my destiny to go back to Bulgaria almost every year,” Mirkovic told www.championsleague.basketball laughingly. “I am always happy to go back there and see old friends and old team-mates and I am looking forward to this trip, although everything will be very fast.”

And the stakes will be too high because both teams want to reach the Regular Season. Lukoil are maybe considered the favourites and while Oradea have the utmost respect for the Bulgarian champions, but have been looking for vulnerabilities.

“Lukoil have both very good foreigners and very good domestic players, many Bulgarian internationals,” Mirkovic stated. “That said, a lot of the Bulgarian players joined the rest of the team late because they were playing with the national team in the FIBA EuroBasket Qualifiers and they have not been practising all together for a long time. I think that could be an opportunity for us and if they lack chemistry it is something we could use to our advantage.”

"I think if we were a football team we would be playing more like Pep Guardiola-style. We like to play nice basketball." - Mirkovic

Oradea have perhaps one more advantage in that they have already had to go through Qualification Round 1, where they overcame the hurdle of Prievidza. Mirkovic agrees that his team played better in the second leg on the road than in the first game at home and there is a lesson to be learned from that.

“Before the first game against Prievidza we had very little information about them so we had to adjust on the fly,” the Serbian-Bulgarian point guard, who turns 34 this week, said. “But in the second game we obviously knew them better and we showed character. In the first everybody somehow thought we would win anyway, so we maybe were a bit relaxed. Nothing like this is going to happen against Lukoil, because everybody knows how strong they are and how good players they have.

“They are going to be totally different games. The most important thing is to arrive mentally ready to fight for every ball, to show character on the floor. From then on, a moment of inspiration can make the difference. We don’t have to win pretty, we have to win. We will have to play basketball as Jose Mourinho would play it, the result comes above everything else.”

Is Oradea really a team that would be happy with parking the bus for 90 minutes though, if defending for the entire game were an option in basketball?

Mirkovic laughs out loud. “No, definitely not,” he says “I think if we were a football team we would be playing more like Pep Guardiola-style. We like to play nice basketball.”

The veteran has fit right in the style of play in Oradea, despite having to adapt to a number of changes on and off the court following three years at Belarus champions Tsmoki Minsk, who are also immersed in the Qualification Round 2 battle.

“The coach (Cristian Achim) believes in me, he shows me his full trust so I am trying to prove worthy and help the team get the best possible results, he said. “I really liked it in Minsk, they welcomed me warmly and I have many friends there. But following some changes I made the decision to come to Oradea and for now I am very happy with it. Minsk had become something like my second home, while in Oradea everything is still new to me. So it is a new challenge, an opportunity to make new friends.”