By Lefteris Moutis
Mission accomplished! Olympiacos won Siena for third time (76-69) and qualified to the Final Four in Istanbul achieving the impossible…
The lights fell normally after the great victory in the first scorers, Vassilis Spanoulis and Kyle Hines. However, the player with the key role whose play was a turning point in “reds” games against the Italians was Vaggelis Mantzaris. Six months after his transfer from Peristeri has become starter playmaker in Olympiacos showing that the desire and will is -besides talent-sometimes are enough to establish a player in his 21 years old.
\How did he feel during this “Holy night”… at such a young age? “Even in my wildest dreams I could expected that my first year in Olympiacos would be so important with such tremendous progress. I can feel only happy because my team reached the Final Four. We played great and deserved it. Nobody believed we would qualify in the Top 16 or Top 8. Now we have qualified to the Final Four and why not make there a surprise; go to the final and why not take it?”
The young guy is not afraid of high goals and admits that his teammates were also optimists. He says during the celebrations of fans outside the locker rooms: “We used to say that in every game we will play better. We had constantly improvement in practices, we have found chemistry and I think we will be more and more better”.
Vangelis Mantzaris got the applause, because he succeeded in large parts of the games against Siena to deactivate Bo McCalebb adding him to his list of famous victims. Acting like a real terminator! “When you have the responsibility to play defense against the best opponent player; you face it as a challenge, especially at my age. I wanted to bother him and make his life harder. However, each player has his weaknesses. Sometimes I managed to stop him, others not, but my team won, reached the Final Four and that counts. Even if he scored 15 points, it doesn’t matter now at all”.
The interview ends barely after strong celebrations voices of fans that waited patiently outside the locker rooms to congratulate the players. Mantzaris doesn’t forget to comment fans’ love, but also to explain that: “We feel very proud because we… brought people next to us. At first, we played in an empty court. But we reached to play in a full court of 12,000 people who went in the field when the match finished. We feel only joy and pride”.
Of course, his last words reflect his –and his teammates- innermost thoughts, only a few moments after qualifying in the Final Four: “What we need to do is to keep the fans around us. Not just for the Final Four, but for the championship which is the main target this season. That’s our goal”.