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Photo: Imago Images – Scanpix
Photo Imago Images – Scanpix
In an interview with the Spanish basketball magazine Skyhook, published this week, Šarūnas Marčiulionis said that before the final of the 1987 European Championship, the Greeks offered money to members of the Soviet Union, and now the famous Greek basketball player Panagiotis Fasoulas gave an answer.
Panagiotis Fasoulas
| Position: | C |
| Age: | 57 |
| Height: | 213 cm |
| Weight: | 97 kilograms |
| Place of birth: | Thessaloniki, Greece |
The Greek team won the 1987 European Championship final against the Soviet Union in overtime 103: 101.
“Some Greeks offered us money, of course, nobody took it, but our action alone cast doubt on our team,” Marčiulionis told Skyhook magazine. – The real problem was within us, due to our poor communication. If the coach had arranged a meeting and asked us what we think of such an offer, we would have crushed the Greeks, I’m sure. Instead, we leave confused and lost.
It was the only time I came across that in basketball and now I can joke that we contributed to the development of Greek basketball then and they didn’t have to pay anything for it. However, the Greeks repaired their reputation when they chanted “Lithuania, Lithuania” after losing in 1995. There has never been and never will be a similar sentiment. “
Both Marčiulionis, who was playing for the Soviet Union at the time, and Fasoul, who represented the Greek team, were in the top five at the 1987 European Championship.
After Marčiulionis’s quotes about the money offered by the Greeks spread in the Greek media, Fasoulas, 57, responded on his Facebook profile.
“Dear Šarūnai, I would never have thought that there is so much trifle in the soul of a great athlete,” Fasoulas wrote. – Since the first days after the Greek victory in the 1987 championship, you have been spreading false accusations about our team that we are using illegal drugs. This was followed by a racist comment from their coach (Alexander Gomelski), calling us Mauritanians.
We must not forget that we also defeated Yugoslavia twice, which had the best basketball players in the world, in the European Championship in Athens against the Soviet Union. You must remember that at the 1989 European Championship in Zagreb, the Soviet Union lost again to Greece.
I’m trying to figure it out, because for a country I represented at the time, the defeats of a rising basketball state like Greece were like a blow to the face.
I never would have believed it would cause you so much pain, but it turns out that you are a terrible lie after 34 years, and we have to suffer the consequences.
It is said that the strength of the losing team makes the winner famous. Unfortunately, three and a half decades later, you managed to screw it up. “
Read more Marčiulionis thoughts on the interviews for Skyhook magazine here.
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