So it was with the finals of Eurobasket ’87 when the mighty Soviet Union, like its predecessor, the Persian Empire, was vanquished by little Hellas on June 14 at the Stadium of Peace and Friendship in Piraeus. Even the bookmakers waffled on the odds before the game, just like the Delphic oracle before them.
But when the last whistle blew it was clear that the Soviet players had turned in early the night before instead of reading Herodotus for a bedtime story, as they should have done.
Triumph was not even achieved at the last moment of regulation time (when almost everything is done in Greece – if it is ever done at all). It was even more thrilling than that. Like the Battle of Salamis, victory was snatched during overtime.
When the 25th European Championship opened in Piraeus on June 3, the media felt it necessary to provide readers with vital statistics. It named the Greek players, noted their heights and stated their positions. Ten days later these names were household words and their backgrounds, performances, scores, opinions, private lives and future hopes were familiar to millions.
Messrs Yiannakis, Gallis, Christodoulou and Fasoulas (to mention only the superstars), as well as the coach, Kostas Politis, had pushed Messrs Papandreou, Mitsotakis, Tritsis and Archbishop Serafeim off the front pages. Even Melina and Aliki Vouyouklaki weren’t photographed for a fortnight. When the games opened, the vision of a Greek team holding aloft the championship cup was vague and distant, but as the team worked its way up the lists hope revived. When Italy was beaten on June 10, and two days later Yugoslavia, the cheers could be heard in every village. Though Greece did not participate the following day, Saturday, an uneasy hush fell over the country as it does during that limbo period between Good Friday and Easter.
With Sunday’s finals approaching and the USSR the adversary, the ethnic tension in the air grew as thick as the nefos. All the nation’s potentates were present to witness the game, both of government and opposition. Although a vote of confidence had been won in parliament by the government three weeks earlier, a deep and broader confidence seemed to be at stake.
Greece began by leading, fell behind, but was leading again by one point at the end of the first half. For most of the second half, the Soviet Union was ahead again. It was a warm evening through most of the country. The streets were empty; everyone was around the tube. Doors and windows had been thrown open and groans and cries of anguish filled the air. But these gave way to shouts of joy as the Greek team again came back from behind. People who had shown no interest in the game in their lives were now yelling the most professional advice. When the Greek team made the basket that tied the score in the last moments of play, the country teetered on the verge of cardiac arrest. Five minutes of overtime play now seemed an eternity. Russia played brilliantly, but with four seconds to go a two-point score following a Soviet foul gave the final victory to Greece.
The explosion of national joy that now erupted was the most spontaneous in Athens since the return of democracy and Karamanlis after the fall of the junta 13 years ago. This, of course, is not to disparage the massive Mitsotakis rally earlier in the month whose enthusiasm was not dampened by rain, nor the pandemonium created by the appearance of the little girl of PASOK with a posie on a balcony in Syntagma, which was the most heartwarming moment of the ’85 elections. Even so, politics in Greece is a rehearsed art and its marvellous outdoor jamborees are not quite as spontaneous as they seem.
The splashing about in the Fountain of Joy in Omonia, the frenzied flag-waving, the bell-ringing, the bursts of fireworks that lasted well into the morning of June 15 was the finest tribute that the country could pay its victorious team. More than a vote of confidence, it was an outburst of self-confidence which the country sorely needed. “It is the most moving moment I have lived in recent years,” the prime minister said, and for once everyone agreed with him.
The team was heaped with more mundane honors, too. The Onassis Foundation, the National Bank of Greece and shipowners Latsis and Vardinoyiannis made handsome donations. It’s a pity, though, that there aren’t poets like Pindar around as there were in the old days to sing about such things. Mr Elytis seems to prefer pomegranate trees to pivot plays. But how pleasant it would be to learn a thousand years hence that a fine team brought honor to its country during the otherwise forgotten archonship of Sartzetakis.
