It was a bleak period for the latest incarnation of my country, this time called Serbia and Montenegro.
After gold medals in Istanbul in 2001 and Indianapolis in 2002 came a painful generational change. Apparently, the latest change of the country’s name didn’t help either.
Sixth place at EuroBasket 2003.
At the time, basketball fans in Serbia thought that was a bad result.
We had no idea what was coming.
Defeats to China and New Zealand followed at the 2004 Olympics, where Serbia and Montenegro failed to make it out of the group stage. Then came the debacle of EuroBasket 2005, played at home, despite having, by far, our strongest roster of that era.
The following summer, a team was cobbled together with whatever was available.
Another embarrassment.
A loss to Nigeria in the opener, fourth place in the group and a comfortable defeat to Spain in the round of 16.
As a teenager, it wasn’t easy to stay devoted to basketball through those years.
The year before, Dirk Nowitzki had kept the flame alive for me in Belgrade.
At the 2006 World Cup in Japan, it was Greece against the United States.
No Serbia, No Stress. Right?
We took our usual places in the living room.
Everyone had their spot when we watched basketball.
Our team wasn’t playing, so at least there would be no stress.
How wrong we were.
Little by little, the game pulled us in. Basketball demanded the only kind of relationship it really allows – an emotional one.
We had almost always beaten Greece in important games during those years, and I felt they deserved more. They had arrived in Japan full of confidence after winning EuroBasket in Belgrade the previous summer.
But the United States?
That still felt like a step too far.
Even without the injured Kobe Bryant, the Americans had LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard…
They weren’t yet at the peak of their careers, but it hardly mattered.
Team USA were overwhelming favorites.
Greece Wasn’t Afraid
In such a short period of time, Mike Krzyzewski simply couldn’t prepare his team for everything Greece threw at them.
The FIBA rules. The different defensive looks.
But more than anything else, the complete lack of fear.
The Americans underestimated Greece. They thought they would eventually take care of business.
Then Vassilis Spanoulis got going.
And once Spanoulis got going, stopping him was another matter entirely.
Looking back, this may have been one of the first games in which we saw glimpses of the player who would become one of the greatest European basketball players of all time.
Spanoulis finished with 22 points.
And he wasn’t the only problem the Americans hadn’t anticipated.
Big Sofo, Running the Floor
Sofoklis Schortsanitis gave Team USA something they weren’t used to.
The Americans weren’t accustomed to being physically overmatched.
The massive Sofo ran the floor like a man half his size, finished in transition, feasted on passes out of the pick-and-roll and sealed his defender deep in the paint early in possessions.
Then there were two professors of the game.
Theo Papaloukas and Dimitris Diamantidis combined for 13 assists.
Michalis Kakiouzis and Antonis Fotsis were the perfect X-factors, hitting shots exactly when Greece needed them.
The final score was almost surreal:
Greece 101, USA 95.
And remarkably, there wasn’t even much drama down the stretch.
The Loss That Led to the Redeem Team
The legendary Coach K would later call it the worst loss of his career.
Three consecutive failures at major tournaments ultimately pushed the Americans toward the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the famous Redeem Team, which cruised to gold.
And Greece?
Suddenly, Greece were favorites in the World Cup final, especially with the injured Pau Gasol unavailable for Spain.
Instead, Greece completely collapsed.
Spain won 70-47 and took the gold.
But there is a reason Greeks will remember that win over the United States forever.
So will I.
By the time it ended, I was sitting in my living room in Belgrade, drenched in sweat over a basketball game in which my own country wasn’t even playing.
Only basketball can do that.
