Athens is again the centre of Europe, and Sarunas Jasikevicius says it doesn't bother him much. The Fenerbahce coach opened the Final Four semifinal front against Olympiacos with the message he repeats every year - 40 minutes, nothing more.

The Lithuanian has already visited every possible Final Four city that means something to him - Kaunas, Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Istanbul, now Athens. "It's surely a bit more interesting, but the problems are bigger too - everyone wants tickets, everyone wants to come," Saras told Lithuanian media. "There's a for and an against, but honestly - it doesn't matter where the Final Four is played."

He's a player and a coach who doesn't let narratives pull the team apart. Last year there was a story about "a fully Greek final," now there's a story about the semifinal as "the real final." None of it bothers Jasikevicius. "There've been a lot of narratives lately. At the end, it's 40 minutes - nothing more."

The serious conversation starts when he gets asked about Olympiacos. "Their team play, the ball movement... how to limit their easy points. The main focus areas are always more or less the same. I think they're the kind of team nobody talks about in the context of counter-attacks. They now run far more, and in the era of Barzokas they've built one of the best offensive teams in Europe."

For Fenerbahce, the series against Zalgiris drained the team. "A four-game series takes a lot out of you. After that there's usually a dip, even though against Zalgiris there were good moments too. I hope we'll raise the level again - because that's exactly what we need if we want to achieve something here."

And when he gets asked whether the doubts around Fenerbahce motivate the players, Saras smiles in his own way. "I hope it motivates them, but at the Final Four you're already so motivated you need to find a way to calm down. Everyone comes in with such emotional intensity that, who knows, you could burn out and fall apart. We'll see how it goes."