“We don’t feel fulfilled”: Roca Team ready to conquer Abu Dhabi
En route to Abu Dhabi © AS Monaco Basketball
As they prepare to fly out for the Euroleague Final Four, AS Monaco Basket are displaying a calm yet steadfast resolve, drawing on their experiences from 2023 and fuelled by a desire to leave an indelible mark on European basketball history.
There was a special energy at the Salle Gaston Médecin on Monday, a mixture of serenity and intensity. Having qualified at the last minute against Barcelona, AS Monaco Basket is about to battle it out in the Euroleague Final Four for the second time in their history, with vengeance as their driving force. “We all share the opinion that we don’t feel fulfilled. We have just earned the opportunity to do something bigger and real,” said Oleksiy Efimov, the club’s general manager, setting the tone for the press conference, with ambition and humility in equal measure.
That feeling is all the more palpable given that fate has placed Olympiacos back on the Monegasques’ path, two years after a painful defeat in Kaunas. “A bit of a sense of revenge for two years ago,” echoes Matthew Strazel, pointing out that the club is “only two wins away from the biggest title in the club’s history.”
Experience, their secret weapon
The match takes on a special dimension for Vassilis Spanoulis, the Olympiacos legend turned Roca Team coach. “The love of everyone there is undeniable, both ways. That will never change because it’s a part of my life. But I’m Monaco’s coach, and I’ll be representing Monaco,” he says firmly, even comparing the upcoming clash to a game against his own son: “If I play ping-pong against my son and I win, if he cries, I’ll tell him that winning and losing are part of the game.”
Spanoulis talks mostly about mental strength, and he fully accepts the pressure that goes with this level of competition: “I like pressure. Pressure made me the player I was, and pressure will make me the coach I’ll become.”
The team will also be able to count on experienced players such as Daniel Theis, world champion with Germany. “He’s a great character, he’s a winner, he doesn’t care about statistics, he just cares about winning,” says the coach.
Off to Abu Dhabi ✈️🧳#RocaTeam #F4GLORY pic.twitter.com/31YgGaHZhP
— AS Monaco Basket 🇲🇨 (@ASMonaco_Basket) May 20, 2025
A shared ambition and an omnipresent president
While this qualification is part of an impressive run of four consecutive appearances in the Euroleague play-offs, the team is looking to go further. “Our main objective was to show consistency. This is our fourth season in the Euroleague, and our fourth appearance in the playoffs,” says Efimov, aware that AS Monaco Basket has already made French basketball history.
President Alekszej Fedoricsev was with the team on the flight to Abu Dhabi this morning. He shared his impressions ahead of the crucial trip, on social media: “Everyone knows how difficult the road to the Final Four is; it asks a lot of every member of the organisation. I’m proud of the way we’ve risen to all the challenges together.”
His philosophy echoes what was said at the press conference: “Although we feel a sense of achievement, we don’t see the ticket to Abu Dhabi as an end in itself, but as an opportunity to go after something even bigger.”
“When I’m close to the bench, it’s because I want every player and every coach to feel supported,” Alekszej Fedoricsev recently confided, illustrating the close-knit mindset that is typical of the club.
The Roca Team is heading to the first-ever Final Four outside Europe, with the clear ambition of giving French basketball its first Euroleague title, driven by a mentality that Matthew Strazel sums up perfectly: “We really want to go there and do something interesting. We’re going in confident, with an underdog mentality.”
The date is set for Friday, 8pm. Monaco time, against Olympiacos. A date with history.