Three of PAOK's players have played for Rethymno in the past, although, more than Giorgos Dedas and Marc Carter, it is Apollon Tsochlas who seems to maintain a special bond with the beautiful Cretan city where he spent four years of his career.

 

That's why when he played with PAOK in the Rethymno last year as an opponent for the first time, he was honored by the home team and that's why he received a very warm welcome this time as well, along with the rest of our team's delegation. "I spent four very good years in Rethymno and I'm always happy to return here and see friends and people I know and bring back happy memories", Tsochlas commented, while talking to paokbc.gr about PAOK participating the "Petros Ekonomakis" tournament and its usefulness, he stressed: "These are the last friendly games before the beginning of the our official ones, so the being here becomes really important. It's a very important tournament, of high level teams, with two of the best Euroleague teams and two of the best in Greece, while even the team from Lebanon plays very good basketball and has a very good roster. I think it's going to be a very good tournament and the people of Rethymno that are coming to the gym are going to enjoy it".  

 

PAOK begins its games playing against Unics Kazan and according to Tsochlas … "they are a Euroleague level team, in the sense that they don't just participate the competition, but they have a roster of the highest level of the competition. It's going to be a very important and difficult test for us and we hope that we'll improve as far as our level of readiness is concerned through the games we are going to be playing in Rethymno, in view of the official games that begin with the Greek Cup quarter finals and continue right after with the Greek League and the Eurocup".