Maccabi Tel-Aviv are preparing to embark on an historic season, seeking to retain the Euroleague basketball championship for a second time.
Maccabi have won the last two championships in European basketball’s premier and most prestigious tournament.
In the last two finals the Israelis have beaten Skipper Bologna of Italy and TAU Ceramica and are looking to complete a hat-trick of titles to reassert their dominance of European basketball.
The team knows that they have a nation looking to them to bring back the silverware once again.
Maccabi has astounding support in Israel, even overshadowing the support for the national team. Two years ago when Maccabi beat Bologna in Tel-Aviv, over 250,000 people watched the game on a big screen in a park in Tel-Aviv.
This year’s squad will be considerably different than the one that won the Euroleague final in Moscow last season. They will again be led by the animated and likeable coach Pini Gershon.
"We have new players who are at least as good as those who left at the end of last season - and perhaps even better," Gershon said.
Lithuanian talisman gone
The most important switch has been the loss of talismanic playmaker Lithuanian Sarunas Jasikevicius who will ply his trade in America’s NBA.
 If I haven’t won three Euroleague titles in a row then I haven’t done anything
Tel Aviv coach Pini Gershon |
The replacement will be Will Solomon who only a couple of years ago led arch rivals Hapoel Jerusalem to their first ULEB Cup, European basketball’s second championship. Many in Israel are questioning Solomon’s temperament and his ability to match Jasikevicius’ high standard and popularity.
"Will is a legitimate Euroleague player, and we know what he is capable of," Gershon said.
"Nobody forced me to bring him here. I’ve been following Jasikevicius for the past 10 years; his ability then and his temperament were no less problematic than what people say about Solomon.
“This is Maccabi Tel Aviv, with a different work ethic and a different tradition. When players come here they behave and play differently. Solomon himself said when he signed that he was glad that he would no longer have to score 25 points in order to win games, because it is the team quality that counts."
The team to beat
Again this season the stiffest competition will come from Italy, Russia and the Greeks, especially after Greece recently won the national team championships. Maccabi, however will be seen as the team to beat and everyone will want to knock the Israelis off their pedestal.
Gershon has his mind on only one thing and is shooting for the title once again. "If I haven’t won three Euroleague titles in a row then I haven’t done anything," said the Tel-Aviv coach.