Talking with Susiladies head coach – Ilkka Palviainen about ‘euro games’
Met Ilkka Palviainen at Urhea-halli in Helsinki on Friday and talked all things about Finnish teams and players performances at last weeks EuroCup and EuroLeague Women games. Interview as usual in Finnish, but a short re-cap of things in English to those whose Finnish is not YET up to the level of understanding all this 🙂
Me :First up – Peli-Karhut and the appearance of a Finnish team in European competition for the first time in a LONG LONG time, what thoughts about the game and fact we have a Finnish team playing at this level?
IP : First of all, it is a delight to see a Finnish team playing at this level, I watched the game via Yle Areena and it was a bright perfomance by PeKa, unfortunately not winning this time. With bit of a better performance at some stages a win from the game could have been won, but I have no doubt that the team will improve their performances as the tournament goes on.
Me : Then moving to Hungary and Sara Bejedi made her debut in EuroCup women with her team, win there and what about her performance?
IP : Yes, watched this game and very good performance by Sara, really active in the defense and came from the bench to add leadership with the ball, really good play and kept her teams game in balance when she was on the court as well as being very active on offence.
Me : Lotta-Maj Lahtinen in Castor – a closer game there than with Sara’s team – but a win non the less.
IP : Got to mention first that Lotta-Maj started the game extremely well, really aggressive and the ‘Finnish Tornado’ came on the court and really scored to get her team going and it is exciting to see the confidence she had on the court.
Me : Then, Awak Kuier and her debut in EuroLeague Women and becoming the second player (after Meral Bedretin) to play in EuroLeague Women.
IP : It looked like the only thing Awak has been playing her whole life has been EuroLeague, really aggressive start to the game. And it is impressive to see there Awak has still been able to improve and develop her game and with the way she moves on the court … and she has been able to bring the ‘best parts’ of her game with the Susiladies to the way she play with her club.
Me : What about the points scored by Finns?? Lotta-Maj and Awak with 14 points … but Sara scored 15 points.. was this a ‘memo’ from you for the Finns to score same amount of points, but Sara missed it by scoring more?
IP : (laughs) Well how about we say that the 14 points is the MINIMUM that would be good to score, and I believe that the players will still be able to perform better as the season goes on.
Me : International games are coming soon, you as a coach must be happy to see these kind of performances?
IP : Naturally, and what is even more impressive is that the players in their respective teams, are all having a big role in their respective teams, getting lots of responsibility from the coaches and also TAKING lots of responsibility themselves.
