By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos Piraeus celebrated winning the back-to-back Greek League championship title by holding the traditional “fiesta” that took place in a sold-out Peace and Friendship arena.
It was a special night for Olympiacos and the club’s fans who once again took the opportunity to ask reigning EuroLeague MVP Sasha Vezenkov to stay in Greece and resist the temptation of moving to the NBA with the Sacramento Kings.
Vezenkov received one of the biggest ovations of the night from the Olympiacos crowd. It could only be matched by the massive applause with which the Reds’ faithful welcomed club co-owners and presidents and Giorgos and Panagiotis Angelopoulos, along with head coach Giorgos Bartzokas.
When Olympiacos captain Kostas Papanikolaou presented the trophy all hell broke loose and, shortly afterward, players and fans eventually joined forces to become one during the festivities.
“When I came to Olympiacos I wouldn’t believe it, I couldn’t even imagine such thing”, said Vezenkov to Eurohoops about hearing the plea of thousands to remain a Red after a season where the team won the Greek League, Greek Cup, Greek SuperCup and came one shot away from also claiming the EuroLeague crown.
It seems that everyone asks Vezenkov to stay where he is and ignore any serenade he may hear from the Kings’ sirens. His teammate Giannoulis Larentzakis sang him fans’ tune (which is completely NSFW by the way and not really translatable) and EuroLeague legend and former two-time EuroLeague champion with Olympiacos Vassilis Spanoulis echoed the sentiment, albeit in a bit of a different way and while leaving the Kings out of the it.
“Sasha you rascal stay in the Port (Piraeus),” Spanoulis chanted at Vezenkov in a night club.
Vezenkov reacts to all these with a kind of beautiful astonishment. “If someone had told me back then I would have laughed. People see our effort and how hard we work and how we have won games and titles. The most important thing is the effort and the healthy mentality that we put out. Our fans are identified with those values”. Vezenkov arrived at Olympiacos in 2018 after parting ways with Barcelona as a misfit and evolved into being named to the All-EuroLeague First Team twice in a row in 2022 and 2023 and being named MVP this season.
Regarding his negotiations with the Kings, Vezenkov didn’t give any concrete answer on how the situation is progressing: “I definitely feel happy and beautiful with what the fans chant for me. The respect I have for everyone is enormous. Now we should be happy. By NBA rules, no discussion can take place until June 23. So, we’ll see”.
Peace and friendship stadium under exclusive control of Olympiacos
The celebration included also some important news for the club. As co-president Giorgos Aggelopoulos announced while talking to the fans: “It’s time for Olympiacos to get its own gym, SEF”.
SEF is the Greek acronym for the “Peace and Friendship stadium”, the home court of the Reds since the nineties. While it has been the home of Olympiacos for decades, it’s a state-owned facility, which now is expected to pass on the hands of three-time EuroLeague champions for the next 50 years, like it already happened with OAKA and Panathinaikos.
Olympiacos is willing to make changes in the arena and in time expand the capacity to 15,000 seats.