The Green Virus and the Boza Attack

Panathinaikos wasn’t enough that they have it in bulk after the loss to Monaco, they also have a bag tonight and indeed a lot of words…

Ioannis Papapetrou remains in the pits, Nemanja Nedovic stayed in Athens (and), he meets Barcelona (22:00, Novasports Prime, LIVE by Sportish) who has a good moon, more than three years have passed since he last threw it at the cannabis (November 21, 2018, score 76-70) and does not come together …

What basically doesn’t come together is his congenital, not even…viral disease, every time he moves away from the FIR of Athens and surroundings!

I mean that because the Greens have an uncomfortable anniversary the day after tomorrow (February 5): their last away win in the Euroleague was exactly a year ago, apart from the fact that it didn’t take place outside of Greece, but at the Peace and Friendship Stadium with 88-77 against Olympiacos.

After their adventure last year, the six-time European champions from Berlin (February 26), Munich (March 4), Istanbul (March 25), Kaunas (April 8) and St. Petersburg (April 12) returned empty-handed back. . ) and Moscow (April 14).

Six cumulative defeats away from OAKA, one of the prisoner…

The Trans-Siberian and 0-16

After starring with the… Trans-Siberian in last season’s epilogue, this year’s ten straight away defeats in the same number of games threw him back into the tough league. The two prisoners and indeed heavy and unbearable as the negative series reached 0-16 and the counting (can) go on…

As past conversation has shown, Panathinaikos and Barcelona have faced each other 47 times in Champions Cup history, with the Catalans leading the victories with a score of 29-18.

Despite the current adverse circumstances, the Greens have fond memories of their glorious past vis-à-vis the so-called…

They won the final on April 11, 1996 in Bercy, Paris, 67:66 and ascended the throne for the first time…

In the playoffs of the 2010/11 season, they were eliminated with a home disadvantage and a 3-1 result, despite losing the first game, while returning to Barcelona after forty days to sew up the sixth star in their clumsy uniform. ..

On the other hand, the Catalans defeated Panathinaikos in the small final of the 2012 Final 4 in Istanbul and took their blood back for a year in the playoffs where they prevailed 3-2.

We will always have Paris!

Definitely, in her case, the attack that Humphrey Bogart said to Ingrid Bergman on “Casablanca”…

We will always have Paris!

They will always be in Paris since that night, which for Panathinaikos and Greek basketball in general was like July 21, 1969 when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon!

This was the first landing of the Greek basketball spaceship on the throne of the Champions Cup, which seemed like terra incognita for 38 years.

Unknown and forbidden country! What happened and what did not happen in this finale is known, said and written … Thousands of words and kilograms, lessons!

Every time Panathinaikos and Barcelona meet, I think of four images that remain indelibly engraved on my hard drive and by the way, as the French say, I recirculate them …

Brankovic did not see the end of the project

Brankovic intervened as a machine god from θεν nowhere!
The Croatian giants didn’t even score half a point in the final, but what about that? EThe stopper he made at Montero ran out and ran like he was a sprinter to avoid the stoppage.

The irony is that (as he confessed to me in the early hours of that great night) the so-called did not see the continuation of the phase after the stopper because under the premise and in his overexertion he fell and injured his knee and then asked what happened!

By the way, before this stopper, Stojan had lowered the General and Zelikos Rebratsa in the third and decisive (for qualifying for the Final 4) game of the playoffs with Benetton in Treviso!

Normal deja vu, that is!

The engagements with Raja

Next to Brankovic was Raja, who played for the Celtics at the time but traveled to Paris as a guest of the Greens.

Dino stayed at the same hotel, stood by them, partied with them and (his former trainer at Jugoplastika) Malkovic and there gave out the engagement rings for the wedding that took place after 15 months.

The Greek of “Dragon”

Panagiotis Giannakis raised the trophy, but his joy and pride (which his late mother Kalliopi told him is a bad thing) lingered…

Sitting on the podium at the press conference after the awards ceremony, he dismissed FIBA ​​press officer Florian Vanninger, clarifying that he would be speaking in Greek, stating: “our basketball has been at the top for ten years now and I have to honor a very big moment in my own way tonight“.

Who then dared to deny him?

Malkovic: “Then let him give the bonus”!

Barcelona missed the biggest chance they had until then (and until next year) to become European champions… Eventually she dried up ahead of the Cup and before fully recovering from that night’s shock she was overwhelmed (next year) by defeat to Olympiakos in Rome to end it!

The Catalans claimed that “they were the moral winners of the final and the moral champions of Europe, with Bozidar Malkovic giving them a paid response…

“If Salvador Alemanni declares Barcelona the moral winner of the final, then he must give the players the promised prize if they win the trophy“!