sport
basketball
Super League
The smells of the Supalki and Jamchi the enigma: this is what the defeat of Maccabi Tel Aviv looked like up close
The road from the center of Athens to Piraeus, the unique atmosphere and Greek dominance on the parquet: the humiliation in Piraeus from a slightly different angle
Tags
Maccabi Tel Aviv in basketball
Yannis Sapropoulos
Yossi Cohen, Athens
Saturday, 20 November 2021, 14:04
Share on Facebook
Share on WhatsApp
Share on general
Share on general
Share on Twitter
Share on Email
0 comments
Doron Sheffer and Oded Katash, The Union (Photo: Danny Maron, Editing: Nir Chen)
The subway from the center of Athens to Piraeus leaves from the crowded Monstiraki station. A cool and pleasant Friday in Athens is full of swarms of people who frequent the bars and restaurants scattered around the popular square.
The train carriages are spray-painted with graffiti slogans and despite the giants' battle in the Euroleague between Olympiacos Piraeus and Maccabi Tel Aviv, two of the most decorated and important teams in European basketball, there is no significant movement of fans dressed in Olympiacos uniforms. The center of Athens is dominated by Panathinaikos fans and only as the train approaches the Peace and Fraternity Hall in Piraeus do the fans discover their faces and emerge like disciplined soldiers through the tunnel leading from the Karaiskakis football stadium towards the old temple nestled in the old-fashioned gray of the coastline.
The entrance plaza to the hall is packed with peddlers selling water and a march of Olympiacos.
As in Israel, here too the Greeks are dying for skewers and the smells of the local Supalki greet the fans as they approach the hall.
At an equal price per person of only 5 euros you can enjoy a skewer or sausage with a drink.
More on Walla!
Maccabi Tel Aviv sums up the nightmare: "Abuse us, there is a price for the short rotation"
To the full article
The photos adorn the corridors leading to the locker rooms (Photo: Yossi Cohen)
In this old-fashioned hall, the Greek basketball team won the greatest achievement in its history: the European Championship of Nations in the legendary 1987 final when the unstoppable Nicki Gallis led the local team to an unforgettable victory over the Great Soviet Union, just before it disintegrated into fragments of countries. Even today Gallis is considered the greatest hero of the modern era in Greece and although he spent most of his career in Aris Thessaloniki the Olympic Basketball Hall OAKA decided to name it.
It seems that Israel and Greece are perhaps the only two countries in Europe (except perhaps Serbia) where basketball is no less popular than football, much thanks to Maccabi Tel Aviv's glorious achievements in the European arena on Israel's side and thanks to very good work by Panathinaikos and Olympiacos on the Greek side. Today's yellows are adorned with foreign players without a definite home player who will glorify the club's name as in the days when Berkowitz, Aroasti, Brody, Jamchi, Sheffer and Katsch were key players in past teams.
The same Jamchi sat next to the pitch as part of his official role as the club's marketing and sales manager.
When I asked him if he was still excited to return to the halls where he had burned the nets in the past he did not give an unequivocal answer but it can be understood that he certainly did.
Like from the days I covered him when he played for Maccabi Rishon Lezion, Jamchi remains a kind of enigma.
Some would say an antipathy or a type of star which does not feel comfortable among ordinary human beings.
Waterbar.
The biggest natural scorer to play on European pitches.
Jamchi (Photo: Yossi Cohen)
His photos in the Maccabi and Israel national team uniforms adorn the corridors leading to the locker rooms on the ground floor of the stadium. As one who spent most of his childhood tirelessly following European basketball, I am confident to this day that Jamchi is the greatest natural scorer to have played on European courts (along with Antonio Riva, Juan Antonio San Epipenio and Nando Gentilla. Nicki Gallis and Drazen Petrovic) ‘The late did not enter the discussion because there were rare players who could make a basket from almost any situation and hardly props in the style of Jamchi).
Despite the fact that it is a top game between two of the continent's elite teams, the hall is not completely full but even a crowd of 6,000 Greeks makes at least as much noise as 10,000 yellows who fill Elijah's hand every night of the Euroleague games.
The bombastic opening of Olympiacos lifts the crowd to the sky and it looks like the mountain is expected to spawn a mouse.
Piraeus' team game washes the field and cuts the Maccabi defense like a knife in extra soft butter.
Yannis Sapropoulos finds no answers against the players of the association he coached for four years.
Former Maccabi Tyler Dorsey and Sasha Wozenkov are particularly prominent.
Less than eight minutes in and the result is already 8:31 for the Greeks.
50 Maccabi fans in the stands are separated from the local crowd, but in such a one-sided game, it does not seem that any of the local fans are interested in the rival fans.
A game that could easily have ended in 40 points.
Sapropoulos (Photo: Danny Maron)
Before the game, I heard Shai Alon, a fan and close to Maccabi, tell Jamchi that he hopes the team in yellow will not snatch 30 points. It turns out that the fears have become a self-fulfilling prophecy and despite a small run that Maccabi makes with the opening of the second half, most of the game takes place in Garbage Time and the audience has no choice but to enjoy the clear dominance of the team in red.
The final quarter begins and Sapropoulos throws the white flag and sends the bench players to finish this fiasco. The Greeks are still in the strong lineup but five minutes to the end it is clear that the battle has been decided and the opposing players are conducting a small talk and exchanging smiles in the color area. An interesting fact that I noticed quite by chance: three mustachioed players are together on the field on the side of Maccabi: Jake Cohen, John Dibertolomeo and Angelo Cloiaro. I have not seen such a collection of mustaches since the German porn movies of the seventies.
Olympiacos takes its foot off the gas and allows Maccabi to end the game with a relatively respectable result, 90:73.
If the Greeks had wanted, this evening would have ended easily with 40 points.
The Greek crowd has been quiet for the most part except for the tam tam drums which keep banging on their heads until the last minute.
They will save the energy and vocal cords for the closer battles that will surely come later in the season.
Share on Facebook
Share on WhatsApp
Share on general
Share on general
Share on Twitter
Share on Email
0 comments
