The last 3 years we observe that the team that appears stronger at the final of the Greek basketball Cup, ends up more weak at the finals of the Greek league, and as a result loses, clean, clear and easily.

            But what intervenes between the two domestic titles for Olympiakos and Panathinaikos? The quarterfinals of the Euroleague and/or the Final4. The way the major Greek clubs deal with the most important European Championship and the weight they put on themselves (psychological, ethical, even economical) on it, have their results afterwards during the finals. 

       In 2010, Olympiakos had 5 amazing players: Lithuanian power-forward-star Linas Kleiza, new star of Serbia Milos Teodosic and the most expensive contract ever in Europe Josh Childres, as well as 2 great Greek players, Theodoros Papaloukas (best European player for 2006) and best Greek Centre Ioannis Bourousis. The "reds" bit Panathinaikos in the Greek cup final in Athens with a dominating performance. But then they lost badly in the Euroleague final by super-power (especially that year) Barcelona in Paris. This defeat brought "nagging" towards and in the team, especially towards their coach, Greek basketball legend Panagiotis Giannakis, and certainly played a big part that its players could not stand equally to the ones of their...eternal opponent at the finals! Panathinaikos on the contrary as a more experienced organism, managed better its failure to qualify for the quarterfinals of the Euroleague, rested and eventually won the championship. Perhaps if Olympiakos had won the European final, things would be different in the Greek finals as well. 

         Last year, Olympiakos won again in the Greek cup final with another dynamic performance against Panathinaikos, even with the abscence of the..."traitor" Vassilis Spanoulis that became part of the reds in September of 2010 with a free transfer from the greens. After the unbelievable first win  against Montepaschi Sienna at the first Euroleague quarter final (score 89-41) the...disgrace of the exclusion with 3 defeats in a row came. On the contrary, the weakened Panathinaikos compared to 2010, without Spanoulis, Lithuanian legend Sarunas Jasikevicius and Nikola Pekovic that left Europe for the NBA, managed to achieve 3 epic wins against champions Barcelona, throwing the Catalonian team from its thrown. Finally the "greens' placed the 6th star of European cups on their jersey, which gave them the "wave" to win the Greek league series later on. By the way,  it seemed like Panathinaikos was in control of all the finals against Olympiakos. Maybe though, if the Greek teams had met at the Final4  in Barcelona, Olympiakos would have won, and the Greek league could be won by the reds, after 14 years of drought!  

              During the current season, I feel that the same story is repeated in reverse. Panathinaikos initially through out Maccabi Tel Aviv struggling, and, some say, with the...help of the referees. At the Final4 in Istanbul, even though Panathinaikos was the outsider against CSKA at the semifinal, its defeat brought frustration to the team. The...non-shot in the last seconds by captain Dimitris Diamantidis put down the team mentally, while its psychology went to the bottom when the Reds achieved the biggest surprise in the history of the Euroleague, beating the Russians in the final two days later! Olympiakos beat Sienna in the quarterfinals clearing...last year's shame, and then unexpectedly won the cup, which made the players believe in themselves, especially the young ones! If however, the two Greek giants had met in Istanbul, I am almost sure that the ball would sit on the green... 

                Apart from the psychology and the "if's" though, during the 3 finals that have been played, we note a difference of energy levels between the two teams. The big players of the "Clovers" Diamantidis, Jasikevicius (who came back in September) and Mike Batiste look like they are ready to put an end to their great carreers, or  at least that they need to leave for a new career. Similarly great players do not exist in Olympiakos team with the exception of Spanoulis, who hasn't made his best career games during the finals. At the same time though its young heroes, Giorgos Printezis, Kostas Papanikolaou, Vangelis Mantzaris and partly Kostas Sloukas seem to have fully gained the momentum since Istanbul. Respectivelly the players of Panathinaikos, Kostas Kaimakoglou, Ian Vougioukas, Stratos Perperoglou and Nick Calathes cannot do the occasional excesses of the past, as the truth is that without their super-3 players (Batiste, Diamantidis, Jasikevicius) playing a good game, they can not pull the boat by themselves. 

           Simultaneously, Panathinaikos has some negative protagonists, such as Romain Sato who doesn't help the team even in defence lately, while Aleks Maric is a permanent dissapointment. On the contrary, on the Olympiakos side Martynas Gecevicius has given the cold blood shot to the team, Richard Elmer Joey Dorsey and Kyle Hines have dominated the rebounds in the two rackets deliverring numbers of blocks to Batiste, while Acie Law showed on the 3rd final, with his spreeds and all around talent what a big loss he was up till now, staying on the side because of an injury.       

          As for the coaches, the two Serbs, best men to each other, have lived opposite lives during the season. Whatever Dusan Ivkovic does comes out perfectly. He was not afraid to get American players to the team, and then change-them mid-season and he supports the transition game, the rule of offence: "we will score more than we concede". Besides, to find tha last time that Olympiakos scored over 50 points at half time against Panathinaikos, we should go to the previous - not decade but - century! 

           Zeliko Obradovic though for the first time hasn't pulled a rabbit from the hat, an unknown factor, as he has been doing every single year either during the Final4 or the chamionship finals. I've written previously that Stephen Smith and David Logan might not fit in the team, bit hasn't the time arrived for them to play a bigger role in the group, as coaches systems' do not work out properly, and the big names of the team can't take a personal shot properly? Isn't it time for Kostas Tsartsaris to play again as a Centre to try and block Hines? Shouldn't Pat Calathes and Alexis Kiritsis be part of the first 12 and show what they can offer to the team? 

        The truth is that I worry about ther future of Panathinaikos. With their owners, the Giannakopoulos brothers and Obradovic ready for the big exit, and with a team that has aged, the biggest Greek club of all times, title wise, is ready to come to an end, and we are expecting this week to watch its last two performances. On the contrary, Olympiakos shows that the conquest of the championship could be the trigger of an empire, not created by the the large sum of money that the owners, the Angelopoulos brothers, have put in the past, but a healthy family-team, ready to take the role of Panathinaikos as the representative of Greek basketball abroad. A team, whose Greek members would be the basis of the national team, starting this summer at the Olympic Qualifying tournament in Caracas. Dear national coach Ilias Zouros will you take all of them to the team? We will see this summer...
 

             
              When young Foreign Secretary Antonis Samaras was calling the Greeks to take the streets for the Macedonian name issue, I was 8 years old. Although my parents used to vote for Socialist PASOK back then, they told me in 1993 that Samaras was a “clean” politician for leaving the Conservative party New Democracy, because of a dispute about the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Macedonian issue with the Prime Minister at the time Konstantinos Mitsotakis.

               I was sad when in 1999 his party, called Political Spring (POLAN) didn’t make it into the European parliament.  For some years now though the once young and full of hope politician seems to be one of the worst and clearly dangerous Greek political figures.

               Initially Antonis mocked all the former members of POLAN that returned to New Democracy after his…Political Winter. As for himself, he  was saying that he would never return to New Democracy, even as its leader, but a few years later begged to come back. Even so, he never forgave the members of his old party that returned before him…We are counting already 3 changes of principle and position here.

              Later on, as a minister of culture, he appointed people almost only from his hometown Kalamata to the new Acropolis Museum in 2009 – a man who claims to be against corruption… At the same time he was saying that Kostas Karamanlis was such a beloved leader that he would be the first politician to be elected for the 3rd time in a row in Greece. Of course after a very short period he was a candidate and got elected president of New Democracy. Since then he didn’t even want to ask Karamanlis what happened with the Greek deficit. His logic was to cover everything under the carpet…Another 3 changes of principle and position.

              Now some facts that everybody knows: Samaras said no to the memorandum, and threw former Foreign Secretary Dora Bakoyannis, daughter  of Mitsotakis out of the party because she said yes to the bailout. He was screaming that there is “another way” than to follow the memorandum while staying within the Eurozone. After 1,5 years though, he voted for the 2nd memorandum and threw out all of New Democracy MP’s who said no to it. Then he decided to take them back to the party… Now he says there is no other way except for following the new memorandum, claiming that SYRIZA will take Greece out of the Euro with its policies, if the left coalition ever rules the country… Are you dizzy from his position switching? I am, so I stopped counting.

              Apart from the constant position changing though Antonis has another drawback – he is an old style politician in a society that is changing rapidly.

Since he became New Democracy’s President, he decides and rules with an iron feast, speaking only to a couple of his consultants about his decisions. His MP’s are only good for giving him applause, while he never asks their opinion. In order understand his 19th century mentality, look at the positions the other conservative leader, Panos Kammenos of Independent Greeks party, has in terms of calling for electronic referendums as well as the relaxed party discipline of his MP’s. Sometimes it feels like Antonis doesn’t even know what the internet is!

              Let’s take his statements and actions after the elections in comparison to the leader of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras. While Alexis doesn’t even breathe publicly without discussing first with his Coalition members, Antonis took and gave back the official mandate from the Greek President almost without asking anybody! Then he started copying badly SYRIZA’s moves by trying to gather all the right wing powers close to him, and talking to his MP’s about the dangers of Greece leaving the Euro if Tsipras forms a government. Again probably he did not ask their opinion about anything. Well done Samaras! Do everything to become Prime Minister even if that means, being totally undemocratic and defaming  the country. Give more hugs to Karamanlis, so that no court will ever call him over about the scandals and the deficits of his era in the government…

              What he doesn’t realise is that these kind of leaders are dead in Greece, since Socialist (PASOK) leader Andreas Papandreou was taken to the cemetery with 1 million people sad on the streets singing his name in the mid 90’s. Since then we had the Olympics of Atlanta, Sidney, Athens, Beijing, and we have reached London Antonis!!! And you still think that you are a charismatic valuable unique leader Antonis!!! Wake up!!!

              Instead of realising that the percentage of his party (from 33% dropped to 19%) fell because of his policy to follow the memorandum and use it as an opportunity to change them, perhaps as the head of an anti-memorandum block, along with Kammenos for example, he insists in punching the knife as we say in Greece. He claims it is a matter of principle not to change his views, but as we have seen, he changes his principles every couple of days…

              Are we going to trust the fate of our country in this Palaeolithic politician who knows only to spread fear and terror towards the people in order to get votes? To an arrogant undemocratic figure who accuses the left of being irresponsible, at the same time that he decided not to unite with Bakoyannis and that’s the main reason that Greece doesn’t have a government right now?

              I say that we need to get rid of him and fast because instead of getting to Agia Sofia in Istanbul, as his political adverts suggest, if he happens to rule we will lose what we have already and maybe more! Samaras is the perfect leader to divide Greek people and maybe lead them into a civil war in order to become ruler. In the next elections, make him disappear once and for all from the political map.

                           I have been thinking and rethinking this article for quit some time now. I pry everything logically, morally, technically, emotionally and ideologically. This is not an easy choice at this time.

                            Being a man who politically began from the left,  now considers himself to belong to the anti-authoritarian ideological area and lives permanently abroad, things should be simple - vote for no one - resist on the streets.

                             The possible entry of the fascist Golden Dawn in the Greek parliament though,  puzzled me. It made me think about whether we should all vote to reduce the percentage of the Nazis, or whether we should let them embarrass us even more till we learn our lesson. But I fear that some never will...

                         But let's say that somebody would put a gun on my forehead and would ask me to choose somebody to vote for,  which party would that be? Let's start with the easy ones: The once upon a time Panhellenic Socialist Party PASOK brought Greece into bankruptcy,  put loan obligations to the country till 2030, put Greece in the memorandum,  from which some of its members gained a lot of money on the backs of the Greek people. Now with its"new" leader Evangelos Venizelos that looks like Benny Hill PASOK serves the same policy: head bowed to the banks and the bosses, oppressing the population. In short it is the most complex and corrupt party in the country and wants to convince us it is fighting for our own good. Rejected.

                        Second easy one is the grandson of writer Penelope Delta, the successor of the man who was called as..."national capital" Kostas Karamanlis of Conservative New Democracy party. Antonis Samaras put all his voters to work in the new Acropolis museum, when he was a minister in 2008, he was screaming against the memorandum in 2010. He then through out Dora Bakoyannis from the New Democracy conservative party, because she supported the memorandum - a policy that later on Samaras supported himself as well. Actually, now that they agree in everything why doesn't he  take her back? In short, we are talking about the political party that brought us to the brink in 2009, changed its policies suddenly in 2011, and tries to justify the unjustifiable; with a very old-style party leader, who insults  the smaller right wing parties, forgetting that his own party in the 90s, called "Political Spring" represented literally the same thing as they do now. Rejected.

                       Bakoyannis as we already said supports the memorandum policies, and let's not forget she is the daughter of Konstantinos Mitsotakis, so she knows very well what corruption is ... I live and breathe for when I will be listening to her  statements when she hasn't made it into the parliament! Rejected. Stefanos Manos is a little more decent, and took the right position on the issue of ID cards a few years ago. Let's  not forget though that he raised the gasoline prices 50 Drachmas up in 1 night when he was Greek finance minister in the early 90s. Do not forget also that he wanted military intervention in December 2008 riots... Rejected.

                     George "Karatzaführer" lost all his prestige in the society with his participation in Lucas Papademos government, and now everybody is convinced that he has absolutely no firm policy position about anything. I remember I was in Chalkida a few weeks ago and were handed out leaflets by his supporters that read on one page: "George Karatzaferis changed positions when it was needed" and in the next page it read: "We didn't change our ideas" or something like that anyway! It's the time that his far-right, populist, TV-party comes to an end by not entering the House. Rejected.

                     For the befuddled Nazi party, Golden Dawn, I don't have much to say. Only the fact that they believe they are firstly Greek and then people shows their stupidity. I saw a photo the other day on Facebook that read: "Pure nations exist only in non-pure minds." I dedicate it to them. And I tell them that when we will have a real-impartial police force, they will all end up in jail, because they are common  criminals. Rejected.

                    Perhaps the only positive development on the right wing is the emergence of Panos Kammenos. Although a little slimy, he looks decent and I think if I was right wing I would for him, in order to keep my dignity. But I'm not, and also I do not see him having any proposals. So: Rejected.

                   In the left now: I do not know if anyone can follow the position of Coalition of the left (SYRIZA). I can not understand how they believe that Greece should stay in the European Union since it is just the expansion of Germany during the last few years. I do not know why they say they want to stay in the Euro either, although to be honest I do not believe them when they say so. I see opportunism in their party with no standard policies. Lately, they try to show a more mild and posh face in order not to lose any voters to Fotis  Kouvelis' Democratic Left party. Rejected.

                 Which brings us to  Democratic Left, where Kouvelis uses his status to convince  large parts of the population to support him, and not only traditionally left voters, but nobody believes that he will not unite with PASOK after the elections . Also his idea of a ​​gradual disengagement from the memorandum scares me! We should disengage immediately! Rejected.

                Coming to the honored Communist Party. My grandfather who was for years a member of the party used to tell me: "I do not want you to be a communist, I want you to become a democrat", and this is one of my main problems with the CPG (Communist Party of Greece). Having beaten up by a member of their youth organisation (he hit me with a helmet on the head) during my University years in 2003, I know that when "the party" has great power and uses it, you shouldn't be in their way, cause they will smash you ... As for its policies, it didn't vote against the party funds new laws, which gives rediculous amounts of money to the Parliamentary parties. Also in 2011 the head of the party Aleka Papariga said that leaving the Euro would be a disaster, even though they are against the European Union! Finally I must say that Stalinism and the international isolation that the Communist Party professes do not express me. Rejected.

               The ANT.AR.SY.A. formation I look at with more sympathy, as they have the most radical views in comparison to all the left parties. But the truth is that sometimes the behaviour of its members resemble the bullying of the Communist Party - especially where they have the power, as they do at the student unions of the Polytechnic Schools in Athens. It has almost never been easy to have a dialogue with someone from EAAK (their student union organisation) as they are always ready for a fight! Rejected.

               Finally I would like to vote for Ecologists Greens, since they would probably bring new and innovative proposals in parliament and perhaps they would push the society towards a new direction, after the fairy tales we heard from George Papandreou "Green development" before the last elections in 2009. But my fear is that they would cooperate with PASOK and New Democracy after the elections. Rejected.

             To be honest I do not know much about the other parties. I've heard good things about the "Dimiourgia Ksana" (Creation Again) party and I was glad that the Marxist Leninist Communist Party of Greece and the Communist party of Greece - Marxist Leninist finally united! But for  all the rest I should give my apologies, since I have not followed them properly.

            In conclusion, I am going back to Greece for the elections, but I am not sure whether I will vote or not. But if I do, it will be something between ANT.AR.SY.A. and the  Greens in order to help them enter the parliament, as they need 3% of the vote to get in. The other option would we to vote for SYRIZA if I felt that I want to my vote to be added to a high left wing percentage that could shake the things a little bit. I reject all 3 above formations but there is nothing else out there for me to vote for.

            Of course I must say that I find it totally ridiculous that the left is not united before the elections. It is quite a disappointing fact and shows that CPG, SYRIZA and Democratic Left have no sense of the position the country is in at the moment. If they decided to unite, I WOULD DEFINITELY VOTE THEM, EVEN IF IT WAS FOR THIS TIME ONLY! But everybody wants to keep their little shops unfortunately and do not want to take responsibilities ...

            For everyone else who wants to definitely vote I propose the following:
- Immerse the Golden Dawn, do not legalize them and give them power 
- Push down from their thrown PASOK and New Democracy. They have devastated the country and do not deserve your vote
- If you give right-wing a vote then do so for Kammenos as he is the only decent one
- For all others vote left to give a message of resistance

            Anyway my friends the day after the elections will mark the beginning of new social struggles, and we, the people will be in the spotlight. WE must take matters into our own hands and to resist against the degradation of our population. No rulling or no co-ruling party will get us out of the swamp by itself/themselves ... Elections are not the end but only the beginning. So let's have a good beginning then.