40 years ago, in 1983 Nikos Galis He was taking his first champion to Greece with Mars. OUR Yannis Ioannidis She returned to the “helm” and the Thessaloniki team began to build their empire from 8 championships until 1991.

A true and key pillar of this historical period for Mars, he will be a man who would rather be behind the flash of publicity and do his job quietly but always in the best possible way.

“K” found him Michael Romanidisplayer with 8 championships and 6 cups in a Mars jersey and also the first European with National in 1987. Having lived a lot, having heard and seen, he agreed to speak and reveal more …

“The great Martian team was slowly building up. The last major addition was Johnny. This is how the bases appeared, which began to be built in 1979, when Galis joined the team, – he said, adding: – I played in the ARIS men’s team in 1980, at the age of 15. By adding other good players like Nikos Philip who came from Ioannina or his Dimitris Kokolaki, Mars has shown that it can lead the Greek cosmos. The team came to Ethniki to have five players (Galis, Giannakis, Filip, Kokkolakis and me).”

“We caught up with Nick because we were taciturn”

“Mostly it was because both of us were not particularly talkative (laughs). Nick was a quiet man who wanted his peace of mind, just like me, even though I was a child then. You understand that no one was talking in the room. If someone had put “girl”, he would not have heard anything (laughs). Nikos sat farther down the lobby anyway. I went up to the room to watch TV. So we didn’t have much time in the room. We discussed more after the game, not before it. Especially when we were on business trips abroad. On the whole, however, we acted without much pressure. It was different back then. Mars had no rival in Greece, a bad lie, and it created a different climate. But in Europe there was no pressure on us either, because we knew that we were outsiders. In the final, the pressure, of course, increased. We said we’d try, that we could do something, but we had teams like Jugs with all these huge players. First we had Phillips Milan, and then this Yugoslav superstar came along.”

“Nick, like all of us, was lucky, probably because Ioannidis stuck with this… habit. That’s how we also got into this … process. Known with Ioannides, he wore the same clothes and the same forms of games, etc. So it became a habit with us. Galis had a rite. He got up slowly, because then everything was a little calmer, there was no pressure. Despite the fact that the team worked professionally, the program was not strict. In this part of the action the teams were free on the morning of the day of the race.

“Look, I didn’t know about the danger in general. Ivkovic ranked me 15th among 15-year-old men and I had performances. I had a strong character, with sufficient strength and passion. I didn’t have a good throw at first, but along the way with a lot of work, I took my shot. At first I was close to the ring, then I was able to get out. Galis and Giannakis worked well together. No one has seen the other in matches. Were there internal problems – some were written. When two top athletes coexist at such a high level, it’s natural. But it didn’t work out.”

“Yes, there was a year that they did not talk, they argued. But this was not the case in all the years of playing together. An example of ’87 did not speak. Their relationship with Mars was strained. They did not have a good relationship, but no one could understand that they had something. All gave parquet for the trophy and nat. Racing has never put anything personal in the middle. And that success brought them back to them.”

“Galis had a frightening outburst. There was nothing like it in Greece, but not in Europe. He was invincible one against one. pushing him unaided was very difficult. But first of all it was a terrible “explosion”. Let’s not forget that he was an athlete who came from college and worked a lot through the infrastructure. There was no such player in Greece. Giannakis was passionate and had a huge energy and strength. He had terrible talent and a long shot. He had a three-pointer. The coexistence of these two great players brought such results. There were, of course, other athletes, but each had his own role, without going into the process of thinking, for example, “I needed to give a pass and I didn’t get it” when Galis or Giannakis had the ball. You couldn’t think about it. Because we all recognized that these two are the leaders of the team.”

“Ioannidis crushed you”

“As a character, it was definitely very challenging. Can’t say that I was happy that I have a coach, about his character always. But he was a very good coach mainly as a coach, not in training methods. That is, he read the match well and “moved” at the time of the race. He was very good at tactics. As a behavior, he “wrinkled” when something was wrong. And when you’re younger, it’s harder to deal with, but oh well…”

“Okay, there were a lot of extremes. Mars training was strenuous. They were very strong. Even the inner doppelgangers had a terrible passion and intensity. And, of course, the team also participated in the race. All the players even wanted to win the training, resulting in nerves, tension, objections, reactions to the coach, but we quickly stepped over them. The team was above everything. This made us the champions of Greece and one of the best European teams. These successes forced us to put aside selfishness and nerves.

“ARIS is in a difficult position. It takes a lot of effort. There are old debts, and the current administration is trying, with the help of people with financial surface, close to the team, to overcome the problems that arise bit by bit. People are close to the team, even in non-commercial matches. It takes patience and time. The Mars jersey is the weight. It should start to more easily qualify for the top positions of the championship and go to Europe. It’s a very important part of it.”

“There were bad circumstances in the knockout matches. In most cases, despite the fact that we had a good duration, the knockouts went badly. I think it was a good chance at the last EuroBasket, but we had a mediocre day when Germany played at home and with many NBA players.”

“We have to take our pictures”

“The World Cup is not easy. You have US that we still don’t know what they will download and you don’t know what to watch from other NBA players. When you have a player like Antetokounbos who is bad at lying, he is the player who will get the balls. This will require the most effort, and this is completely normal. Sometimes there must be another creature and the ball must not be in his hands so that the opponent’s defense does not adapt. He works very well on the open court, he is great in it, but in the playing set we have to find solutions and not be predictable. If our throws – which happened in some matches – release John, we have a problem with that.

“A good team run gets people into basketball”

– Previously, there were relatively few players from Europe in the NBA. Now a huge number of players have gone beyond the United States. Is it worth it in European basketball, which also has a “window” problem with the Euroleague?

“In Europe, in general, there is a mess with many events. It is not easy for Euroleague players to leave their teams for national teams and risk injury due to the very difficult program of this event. On the other hand, national championships are a very important part of basketball. Basketball of the country whose national team performs well will win. When there is a good course for the nation, the sport is discarded, becomes more popular, attracts more children, sponsors, changes the level. Let’s not forget that European players are now more sporty and approaching American NBA standards. Physical qualification and athletics are core principles of the NBA. European basketball has now focused on these elements because the program is heavy and it is very difficult to deal with players who do not have athletics. Today there is targeting, which is why, for example, we don’t see such good shooters anymore.”

Michalis Romanidis stopped basketball at the beginning of 29 when he competed in Pagrati and suffered a second time. He tried to return to Papagu, but could not.

Today, he is close to the kids through the Free GSC basketball academies in Attica Grove (along with Nikos Linardo). They study the basics for children from 8-13 years old until they can get into clubs and horse races.