Euroleague Final 4 Semis a/k/a PAO defenestrates TAU and Sakis's successor hits the wrong venue

On May 4-May 6, the Euroleague Final 4 was held in Athens. The Euroleague is the basketball version of the UEFA Champion's League, whereby the top teams from all over Europe participate in a tournament to crown a European champion. Last year the crown was conquered by CSKA Moscow, a complete team that further flexed its muscles by proceeding to beat the LA Clippers by 19 in an exhibition game last fall. CSKA returned to the Final 4 this year, along with two Spanish teams, Tau Ceramica and Unicaja Malaga. The fourth participant was my favorite Greek squad, Panathinaikos (or PAO), a traditional Euro powerhouse. A chance to peep my favorite team playing in front of some of the most rabid fans in the world was an opportunity I couldn't pass up, so I rolled to Greece, procured some tickets through the wonders of ebay, and lived to tell of my experience:


I made my way into OAKA for the semifinals on Friday. I have to give it up to the Spanish fans - both the Unicaja and Tau supporters brought their own bands, which played nonstop from their seats. The Tau band got drowned out by the crowd when they played PAO, but they kept blasting their trumpets gamely.

It had dawned on me, on my way to the stadium, that the concession stands might not sell beer. Sure enough, when I got into OAKA it appeared that the stadium was dry. This was a challenge - at least at the NCAA tournament I had been prepared for such cruelty and had snuck booze in (uncomfortably stuffed in the crotch of my pants on the theory that only the most forward, or horniest, usher would frisk there). But here I appeared to be resigned to sitting there for near 6 hours without a little something to wet my whistle. Ugly.

The first game was pretty good, Malaga kept it close but CSKA blew the doors open at the end, largely due to the point guard wizardry of Theo Papaloukas, the 2-time Euroleague MVP (think a Euro version of Magic Johnson). Meanwhile, I had noticed cats starting to mill about in the aisles toward the end of the game, watching the game standing. This seemed to be more my speed, and it seemed to be where the action was, so I made my way down from my seat to stake a spot in the aisle. Having secured one, right next to where the Tau fans were sitting for additional chances of partisan violence, I looked behind me at the tunnel leading to the concourse and . . . bingo!

Like an oasis, I see a sweet older lady manning a tiny concession stand that looked like a kid's lemonade stand, with a tray full of cups of beer. I don't know if she had brought her stash from home or what, but she kept sending her cohort to the bowels of the stadium to refill it, such that she never ran out. Granted it was at prices that would make those usurious purveyors of the "Big Time" beers at the MCI Center blush - 5 euros for like an 8 ounce cup! - but beer is beer and she was the only person in the stadium selling it. I started buying them 3 at a time.

Standing in a good spot, amongst some of the more bloodthirsty PAO fans, and with the beer lady on hand, I was ready. And it was a good thing I was fortified. I've been to some pretty loud, intense sporting events - Cameron Indoor, Yankees v. Sox, NCAA final 4, Elite 8, etc. But this was absolutely the loudest I had heard any stadium, anywhere. Of the 18,000 fans, at least 15,000 were PAO fans, and the chanting (even pregame) was non-stop, and by almost everyone in the stadium. Once the game started, the booing and whistling on every Tau possession was non-stop, the different chants were flowing on every PAO possession. And the cursing dropped from the rafters like a hailstorm. Finally, here was a place I could make my usual threats of physical harm to the ref and suggesting various anatomical impossibilities to the opposing players without feeling the (slight) shame that I do when the expletives fly over the heads of the 10-year old kids that sit in front of us at Georgetown games. Here, it was the 10-year olds that made my ears turn red.

I knew I had found people after my own heart when they brought out, as pregame entertainment, Greece's latest entry in the Eurovision contest. Eurovision is a continent-wide competition among countries, each of which sponsors a performing artist singing a given song. This year's entrant, in the grand tradition of his illustrious predecessor (and Eurovision winner) the infamous Sakis, is a faintly homosexual, anorexic pop crooner without an ounce of talent. Here's a pic:













Um, yeah. Anyway, homeboy comes out to sing the song that he hopes will bring home the gold for Greece at Eurovision, and is met by 15,000 strong booing, whistling, calling him a jerk-off (and that was by far the kindest thing), and effectively running him out of the building. Fantastic.

The game was about to start and I was a little worried that an usher might kick me out of my prime spot - I was, after all, blocking the aisle . . . until I turned around to see the usher behind me, chanting along with everyone else. The helpful young lad even watched my spot when I would go get beers. Those that went to the Athens Olympics may remember how professional and sanitized all the venues were. Well, that was 2004, this is 2007 baby! Back to the real!

I made fast friends with the dudes around me (after a moment of tension when I showered one of them in beer after an and-one by PAO). They were some of the more, uh, avid Panathinaikos fans. The organized fans, i.e., the hooligans of Gate 13 (the same crowd that got into a major rumble with Olympiakos fans a month ago, resulting in one death, on the way to a women's volleyball game), were across the stadium from us, but the dudes around me, most in their late 30's, seemed to be alumni of that group. They were good guys though. One even tried to induct me by trying to convince me to start a brouhaha with a Spaniard who was irking him, but I declined, at least until we saw how the second half would end. A few of my homies:




Me and my man Kostas

From r to l: Vangelis, Vasilis, and the cat that wanted me to start a scrap



Fortunately, and perhaps inevitably, it ended well for PAO. There was no way they were losing in the semis on their home turf. They are probably the best defensive team in Europe, and they shut down Luis Scola, the Argentinian who wreaks havoc with his low post moves, and Tiago Splitter, the seven-foot projected NBA lottery pick (personally, I thought that even though he moved well for his size, he wasn't all that skilled). PAO won fairly handily, pulling away in the second half.






Fans holding up their PAO scarves after the victory, and waving the flag.


Toward the end of the game, I was in the turlet getting my micturition on, when all of a sudden a one-armed Russian at the urinal next to me starts bellowing at me in a deep baritone that "PAPALOUKAS NUMBER ONE" and "CSKA WIN SUNDAY." Perhaps too taken aback by the surreal scene of getting heckled by a one-armed Russian bear while he was splashing urine all over the place, I couldn't muster up a witty rejoinder, and only promised that we'd have to see on Sunday.