Olimpia Milano, Kevin Pangos vs. his past: “It will be difficult.”

“We face a very strong Zalgiris.”

Ahead of the Euroleague match against Zalgiris Kaunas, a club in which the player played from 2016 to 2018, racking up trophies (2 Lithuanian championships and 2 Lithuanian cups in his trophy cabinet) Kevin Pangos, Olmpia Milano’s point guard, warned his team of a match full of pitfalls.

“We face a very strong Zalgiris. We all know, me first, how difficult it is to play in front of a very hot crowd in a full arena. So we will have to stay focused, keep control of the pace, execute our attacking schemes and play hard on defense for the entire 40 minutes of the game,” he said.

Last season, Ettore Messina’s team returned to win the Scudetto, snatching it from Virtus Segafredo Bologna’s jerseys. The Biancorossi, who had finished in second place right behind Sergio Scariolo’s team in the regular season, immediately brought the court factor to their side in the final series and never let the Felsinians catch them again. In the Euroleague, Sergio Rodriguez (who said goodbye to the Red Shoes in the summer to return to Spain) and his teammates were eliminated by Ergin Ataman’s Anadolu Efes, who would win the tournament for the second year in a row.