Next Tuesday (9/5) o Olympic in SEF, he settles his differences with her once and for all Fenerbahce and with the victory he advances to the final -4 of Kaunas (19-21/5), which, based on his overall run in this year’s Euroleague, he absolutely deserves. If all goes well, he hopes to be in the final of the event on the same day that the Greek people go to the polls to exercise their right to vote in the 20th post-colonial national elections.

So, at the time (20.00), when, according to the assurances of experts, a safe assessment of the final result of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will be carried out, the jumbo ball of the Final 4 of the Euroleague will take place, with a short final scheduled for 17.00. In the event that Olympiacos takes part in the grand final, the consoles will undoubtedly light up, and the audience reading the next day will show the winners.

Will the politicians or players of Giorgos Bartzokas be the participants in the discussion? The only thing you can be sure of is that if the Red-Whites get to the point of claiming their fourth European title, they will have positive memories of similar circumstances.

When major sporting events, and there are five in all, coincided with elections in our country, in most cases they had a positive outcome for the Greek flowers, the main of which, of course, was winning the European Championship in 2004. The biggest collective success of Greek sports and one of the biggest surprises in world football.

Euro 2004 and… European Parliament

On Saturday, June 12, the triumphal procession of the “children” of Otto Rehhagel began at the European premiere in Portugal, and the next day (13.06) the Greeks went to the polls for the second time in four months after the national elections. to nominate their representatives to the European Parliament. The winning debut against the hosts with a score of 2:1, with goals from Karagounis and Basinas, caused excitement among all the Greeks, who the next morning at the polls were mainly discussing the victory over the company of Ronaldo, Figo, Rui Costa and the rest of the Portuguese stars, without imagining the outcome the path of our team to the tournament.

The pre-election battle in fact became a confirmation of the results of the March 7 parliamentary elections, where the New Democracy, led by Kostas Karamanlis, emerged as the first party with an underlined percentage of 45.36%.

Given the calmer mood towards the European elections, the ND scored 43.01 percent, compared to 34.03 percent for PASOK led by George Papandreou.

Maybe without self-confidence

May 2023 has a lot in common with May 2012. And this is because, as now, as well as in the then national elections that took place on May 6, it was given from the very beginning that there was no chance for an independent government. appear despite how they were made with an advanced analog system. None of the parties exceeded 20%, and so an interim government (Pikrameno) was immediately formed, which led the country to repeat elections on 17 June, from which emerged the Samara-Venizelos cooperation government.

At the same time, Olympiakos and Panathinaikos were preparing to participate in the final-4 in Istanbul a week later (May 11-13). Zeljko Obradovic’s “greens” are among the favorites, Dusan Ivkovic’s “red-whites” are absolute outsiders. CSKA, with the help of a referee, defeated Panathinaikos (66-64) in the semi-finals and met with the Red-Whites, who defeated Barcelona (68-64). In the final, the Piraeus managed to overcome a 19-point difference, and in the final victory (62–61), they won the trophy for the second time in their history.

From festivals to elections

In the politically “hot” June 2012, another major sporting event took place, in which the Greeks took part. The national team, under the leadership of Fernando Santos, was now “present” for a third consecutive Euro with the aim of proving that it had established itself as a force to be reckoned with in European football. On Friday, June 8, the premiere took place in its group with the organizer Poland (1-1), on Tuesday, June 12, it played against the Czech Republic (2-1 defeat), and on Saturday, June 16, the decisive vote: Karagounis goal beat Russia 1–0 to advance to the quarter-finals, where Germany awaited them. At dawn, thousands of people in all corners of Greece were celebrating and wishing for a great victory over… hated (because of memos and Scheubel) Germany in the quarter-finals. On June 22, Nationalmansaft won with a score of 4:2, and somewhere on this dream of a new Euro 2004 came to an end.

Euroleague and A1 in 2014

The Euroleague Final 4 again coincided with the elections, this time with the 2014 municipal and self-governing elections. They were scheduled for 18 May and Olympiacos were eager to be there again.

However, Real Madrid were an insurmountable obstacle in the play-offs, in which they had lost 3-2 in a series a few weeks earlier. The title, determined on election day, went to Maccabi Tel Aviv, who beat the score 98–86.

The 2014 self-government repeat elections, held a week later on 25 May, also coincided with the European elections. Olympiakos and Panathinaikos two days earlier (23/5) started their fights in the final of the Greek Basketball Championship, and the score in the series was 1:0 against the Greens. ESAKE has postponed Game 2 by one day (Monday, 5/26) to not coincide with the Elections. Olympiacos won 89–64, drew 1–1 but ended up losing the championship 3–2. For reference, SYRIZA with Alexis Tsipras was the winner with 26.56% against ND and Antonis Samara with 22.72%.