Turkey – Greece: You and I are Turks Romios, Giannakis you and I are Galis

It’s been a long time since we last lost to the Turks and I hit wood to prevent that tonight (19:00, Novasports Prime and LIVE from Sportish). It didn’t happen in Ano Liossia’s (72-71) thriller last Friday. May the hand of Kostakis be healthy!

It wasn’t like that on July 3, when we faced each other at the pre-Olympic tournament in Victoria, where the national team turned from -14, prevailed 81-63 and were sweetened with Turkish delights before the Czechs ax fell heavy.

In the immediately preceding (last) match of the official tournament, on September 7, 2013, in the first phase of the Eurobasket in Koper, where the national team won 84-61, this was not the case.

43-23 and 10-1 and baptisms in the Bosphorus

Not to mention and looking back little by little on the past games, we have their goals forever: with a result of 43-23 in 66 games, with a partial series of 10-1 and with the last defeat recorded in a friendly game Game on August 15, 2015 in Polis, on the way to to Zagreb and Lille.

Five years earlier, on August 31, 2010 in Ankara, we were thrown to the canvas for the last time in an official match (World Cup) with a score of 76-65 in the presence of the current general manager of the national team, Nikos Zisis.

Of course we didn’t always have them, especially in the past and especially not when we first met, and in fact this game was historic because it was the maiden in its story: on June 25, 1936, the National took over the boat from Piraeus, traveled to City and was baptized in the waters of the Bosphorus!

On the bench was (James Naismith’s Springfield University student) Mike Stergiadis, while the team was occupied by future university professor and writer Alkis Aggelou (4p.), Antonis Skylogiannis (4), who later became Haris Amarantidis (2), Giannis became Nannes (2), Vassilis Vassis, Nikos Koutsalexis and Filippos Bachomis.

Of course – to tell the black truth – our … godfathers did not treat us with great tenderness and instead of smearing us with oil they cut us 49-12, but as the Americans say: “It is a pity to leave a detail, to spoil a beautiful story”.

This 86-year-old Alisverisi contains most of the episodes, apart from the fact that, apart from basketball, some of them were also diplomatic, not even military…

Guma is smart and the price on “Bond”

I mean, that and more than me, the members of the national team understood it on May 24, 1974 and experienced it firsthand.

Then, two months before Turkey invaded Cyprus, the two sides met amid tensions at the European Nations Cup in Ankara. The atmosphere was already tense and the stadium looked like hell!

Vassilis Goumas, the national team leader at the time, was the first to eat the cold as he went out to take a look and immediately made a change.

So he entered the dressing room again, saw Nikos Sismanidis in front of him and without revealing his excitement and fear because of the images he had seen, he turned and told him…

“Bond, you’re a great player, you brought a lot to Greek basketball and the national team and I think it’s time to be captain“!

The veteran Pagrati and Olympiakos playmaker (who wore the crest shirt 87 times) earned the nickname ‘Bond’ for his involvement in shooting and a soft spot in the James Bond films.

How could he know what to expect…

At that moment, the later national coach and trainer of Ethniki felt extremely flattered in the twilight Eurobasket of 1987…

He certainly did not know what trap Goumas was throwing him into: as a leader, he should have come out first on the field and become a target for the Turks…

He would realize this a few minutes later when he actually came out first with the banner, regretting the time and moment he accepted the honor!

The viewers made him summery with cigarettes, coins and whatever else they threw at him!

Nevertheless, the national team fought bravely and sold their Tomari dearly, knowing that they would lose 70-68.

The composition of the Greek team in this game: Giatzoglou 19, Giannouzakos 16, Kastrinakis 12, Raftopoulos 10, Goumas 8, Kontos 2, Ioannidis 1, Sismanidis.

The return of “Xanthos”

Since then, seven years have passed and the national team returned to Turkey (not to Ankara, but to Istanbul) for the challenge round of the European Championship, the final stages of which were to take place in Czechoslovakia …

With which trainer? With one of the players who went through the ordeal that night.

On the bench was Giannis Ioannidis, who led Ethniki to eight wins in a row in as many games and in the final stages to the celebratory qualification…

The clock’s hands stopped on May 7, 1981, when the National survived a shocking thriller to throw the hosts to the canvas by a score of 85-84.

The tearful defense of Gali and the crescent of Giannakis

Indeed, that night the roles were dramatically reversed: Giannakis scored at will and Galis played a tearful defence!

“Xanthos” had then started the squad with the three guards, allowing Takis Koronaios and Nikos Galis and Panagiotis Giannakis to fit in the top 5: these had great success in the qualifying tournament, but not in the closing stages where teams joined the high three , which they made us with the … onions!

No sooner had the game started than “Gangster” found his shots weren’t going well and at the same time caught in mid-air the gauntlet that Ioannidis had thrown at him in honor of the great Turkish star Herman Kunder, an opera and it was Done.

At the same time, the “Dragon” was in the Twilight Zone (as Michael Jordan used to say) and had it everywhere!

The result; Galis scored 10 points and the moonlit Giannakis scored 30!

The composition of the Greek team: Giannakis 30, Kokolakis 19, Koronaios 12, Galis 10, Karatzoulidis 8, Kastrinakis 6, Katsoulis, Petropoulos.

• PS: Let’s keep all this well in memory and set the climate and atmosphere in light of today’s game…