By Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
From the beginning of the season he was the point of reference for Olympiacos. In his 30s Vasilis Spanoulis is the only player that won Euroleague two times the Euroleague (2009, 2012) with two different Greek teams (Panathinaikos, Olympiacos) and he was also both times the Final Four MVP. And one important side note: Both times his wife gave birth to a son. When he considered that after his press conference, his conclusion was simple. “I will have ten kids”.
That was a joke – well, maybe – but the achievement of Olympiacos is certainly no joke: “A lot of people believed that the best we could do was to reach the Top 16. We worked hard all season. Maybe we are the team that improved the most during the season in the last decade. In the summer we got many new players and it’s unthinkable that now we are on the top of Europe. I don’t know if that has happened before. I am happy. This trophy is well deserved for our owners who are always by our side and love basketball, for our coaches, everybody that help us, trainers, physiotherapists, the press officer, everybody. We deserve this title”.
And the got it after an impressive comeback: “We enjoy basketball. When we were down by 19 points we said to each other just enjoy the game. And finally we won. We are really close as a team, specially the last three or four months. We have fun, we love each other, we are a family, we are friends, we know our roles, we have respect for each other and you can see that in the court”.
And that’s the secret of him being the MVP: “I just want to do my part in order for my team to win every game. This is my goal: to help my team. If we work together, like we did in the Final, we can achieve everything. That happened in our last possession. I got the ball, I saw Kirilenko waiting for me and so I passed it to Giorgos Printezis. He was the right person, on the right place, the right moment. This is great success not only for Olympiacos, but also for Greece. In a time of crisis, there is a team that is champion of Europe. Basketball made us proud once again and that proves that we have to protect it, specially the people in charge of it and the state, like our eyes. Now we have to relax and on Tuesday we will start preparing for the Greek league finals”.
For one more championship title? “I hope so. This title is just the beginning”.