LARNACA (Basketball Champions League) – Coach Linos Gavriel of Cypriot champions Petrolina AEK Larnaca is one of those professionals who stay constantly up-to-date with all comings and goings in European basketball, but even if you were not as attentive as he is you have must have heard of U-Mobitelco Cluj-Napoca’s moves in the transfer market this off-season.

Cluj-Napoca have put together a strong team with a two-fold goal as they aspire to re-gain the Romanian league crown after falling in the semi-finals last season as well as gain a spot in the Basketball Champions League Group C.

The latter part of course requires the Romanian side to first eliminate Petrolina AEK in Qualification Round 1 next week and then advance against Usak Sportif in Round 2. While Gavriel does not dispute Cluj are the favourites in the tie against his team, www.championsleague.basketball found out that he has done his homework to prevent them from realising their European goal.

Your roster appears much stronger this season but what exactly will be different about your play? Are Cluj-Napoca a match-up that suits you or you would have picked another opponent in the qualifiers if you could?
I still don’t know for sure how my team will look in an official game. Every day we discover something new because we have brought in several new guys and everything we have seen is from the warm-up games we played so far. They don’t necessarily mean that this is how we are going to be in two crucial knock-out games. Our style of play will remain the same on the defensive end, where we want to make life difficult for the opponents. Offensively the biggest change will come from the fact that this season we have a deep roster of 14 players, and in every game I will have to leave out at least two big-name players. Last season we were using a 7- or maximum 8-player rotation and a much higher average age. This year we are younger and have a big rotation to be able to also switch to an up-tempo pace when we don’t want to play in the half court.

So from a personnel standpoint, would the team be able to combine your Cypriot league title defence with a deep run in the Basketball Champions League, or the FIBA Europe Cup in case you fall to Cluj?
Most of us, I would say up to 70% of the team, are at the club this year precisely because of its European prospect. There are players that would not have joined us this summer if were not taking part in a European competition. So without underestimating our opponents in the Cypriot league, because I don’t take anything for granted, our main focus is on our European campaign. This is the campaign that will keep the team and even the management motivated throughout this season. We are aware that logic says our final destination should be the FIBA Europe Cup given our opponents in the BCL qualifiers, but we are going to fight tooth and nail, take it possession by possession and see where it gets us.

Was it the successful run in the FIBA Europe Cup what shaped your view on European participation or this mentality change would have happened regardless?
What happened last year is what determined our moves this off-season. It was obvious that we needed a deeper roster, that we needed another center alongside Primoz Brezec. But we decided to act upon these and try to improve exactly because we saw last year that if we did we could be competitive in Europe. Our results in the warm-up games have been fantastic, but I am trying to convince everybody that this does not mean anything. We need our fans to come and if we play hard we will try all together for the best possible result.

Last year in the FIBA Europe Cup your home court was a fortress but it took a few games for attendance to peak, is it a possibility that you will not have a full house against Cluj and how would that hurt you?
We have thought about this and the management has made efforts in the last week to invite people to be present at the first game, they have done a lot of work with some original marketing ideas and a news campaign. We cannot afford the luxury of not having our fans present for the Qualifiers. I hope we will have a full house already from the first game.