Panathinaikos employ many of Greece's national team players but eternal rivals Olympiacos now have one of the country's basketball legends at the helm after appointing Panagiotis Yannakis as coach following the departure of Pini Gershon.

Olympiacos parted with Gershon, who is also the Bulgaria national team coach, after Saturday's 81-80 defeat at EuroCup side PAOK.

That setback had followed a midweek loss to Montepaschi Siena in the Euroleague, a competition which has

Gershon can now focus more on his new job as head coach of the Bulgarian national team.

seen the Reds fall in their last three games.

Yannakis, who captained Greece to a European title as the point guard on their 1987 team, has been a big hit as the national team boss as well, steering them to EuroBasket glory in 2005 and to a silver medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship.

He will lead them this summer at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Athens.

"Olympiacos would like to announce the appointment of Panagiotis Yannakis as coach," the Piraeus club announced in an official statement.

"The club would like to wish him every success in the difficult challenges that await and would also like to request the supporters to show patience and give the new coach and team time to work together in order to put Olympiacos back on the road to success."

The appointment capped a very busy week for Yannakis, who discovered in Athens on Thursday that his national team would play Brazil and Lebanon in Group A of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

Athens will host that event in July.

A former player at Panathinaikos, Yannakis' last job in club coaching had been with Maroussi.

He had a successful stint there, which included leading them to the final of the FIBA Europe League in 2004.

Gershon had been feted as a hero by many after arriving in the summer of 2006 from Maccabi Tel Aviv, the team he guided to the FIBA SuproLeague title in 2001.

He did a terrific job with the Greek giants after taking over from Jonas Kazlauskas, leading them into the domestic play-off finals one year ago where Olympiacos lost to Panathinaikos in five games.

The Israeli also got the team to the quarter-finals of the Euroleague and this season, led them into the top 16 but they go into the next phase on the back of defeats to Prokom Trefl Sopot, Zalgiris Kaunas and Montepaschi.

He will attempt to guide Bulgaria to EuroBasket 2009 in Poland and will discover later this month which teams he will have to overcome when the draw for the qualifying games is made.

Yannakis, who has signed a two-and-a-half-year contract to coach the Reds, does have some national team players at Olympiacos.

Sofoklis Schortsiantis, Panagiotis Vasilopoulos and Ioannis Bourousis all play for Olympiacos, while Panathinaikos have five national team players.