By Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
Thirty minutes to the end and with the… fragile 66-64 on the Matrix of “Sinan Erdem”, he went for the rebound and the referees charged him with a foul. He had the ball in his hands, he grabbed it, he raised it to his face and… he bit it! “It was delicious …” he comments.
Does he feel any of his front teeth… ready to fall? “My teeth are fine. I cannot say the same about the ball. It might lose some air. Check please, if it’s popped”, he answers and laughs. We don’t. Cause even through this funny answer, we can… confirm everything we saw at the game against FC Barcelona Regal: the will, the passion and the strength of their soul-primary and secondary … every other member’s of the human organism- was the guide to success for all Dusan Ivkovic’s players.
We told him about our little… research, the same morning, when asked from some managers of players around the globe and some scouts from the NBA to tell us their opinion, about the second semifinal game. The majority (actually, with one exception) said “Olympiacos will win”. Many of them added “we cannot tell you how they will do that, but… they will win”. This faith might have to do with the fact Olympiacos came to Istanbul as the underdog of this Final Four, something that put a lot more pressure at FC Barcelona.
“Pap” explains: “From the start of the season, they doubt us. That’s why we closed… the doors, so we can shield the team. However, if you had the chance to be in our locker rooms, before we went on court, you would hear what everyone was saying and it was the common thing: “OK, we got this far. Let’s enjoy this game. Let’s have fun, let’s fight, let’s give all our energy, everything we have got and let’s see how far we can go”. We just didn’t wanted to fall down without trying. We knew we had the underdog label on us and… that was their mistake. Not ours. We never considered ourselves as outsiders. And when people were asking about it, we didn’t say we are, but then again we didn’t say we aren’t. We didn’t talk at all about it. We left whoever to say… whatever. And those who believed we were the underdogs, they paid the price. All year long, we feel there is no need to attract all of the lights. Even when we qualified to the Final Four, we said “its a great success, let’s go over there to fight” ”.
Apparently, among those who saw the Reds as outsiders, were the Blaugrana and they had an unpleasant surprise.“We knew they are a team we can beat and that they had all the pressure. They had reasons to be afraid. Not us. And that was one of our advantages. It wasn’t like it made our life easier, nothing like that, cause nothing is easy when you play this type of games, but it was an extra “ace” card… to our sleeves. We had passion, we had great desire and we were focused for 40 minutes, something we own to guys like Vasilis (Spanoulis), George (Printezis) and Pero (Antic) who have many experiences, from big games and helped us immensely. Not just today but throughout the year. ”
Now the… so called facts have changed. Everybody in CSKA Moscow knows that Olympiacos is not just an underdog, but a team which is capable of everything. The unfortunate thing is that AC Low will not attend the final, due to sprain. “We need all our players, from one to 40 minutes and this is obviously not the best for us. We hope he gets well soon and its certain we are going to play for him too, against a team we know they will not underestimate us. Forty minutes have left and we intend to show the same passion, the same level of energy and the same will for the victory. And if there is something we have proved so far, is we have the mentality of a winning team”.
When you are playing for Olympiacos, you know there is always a big pressure. But this year, these guys seem to have more fun than ever, playing basketball. “And this is the key to this year’s team: good chemistry. I don’t want to be misunderstood, we always had chemistry, but this year everyone has found his role, knows what to do in the team, for the team and everyone is working for the common good. The results to all that is we play good and healthy basketball. And that’s how we come to a point to play for the Euroleague’s title. And that’s how we will keep moving on. We are going to give our all to the Final and we want to reach the end of this road. We have only to gain things. The truth is that … there is something to lose, the trophy, but this is a thought that does not concern us”.