WINNERS

AUSTRALIAN BASKETBALL TEAM
Rarely have we ever seen a team so under control. It’s not a matter of their performance, there are other teams in the competition that impress the crowds a lot more with their accomplishments. It’s the fact that they appear so calm and collected, despite the difficult positions they’re placed under by teams with the quality of Lithuania, France or the Czech Republic. The Boomers always seem to have the right answer and their undefeated run in the first two group stages of the competition has nothing to do with luck. Having already qualified for the last four, it wouldn’t be any surprise if they walked away from the tournament with a medal in their suitcases.

KATERINA STEFANIDI
Yet another accomplishment for the high jump athlete, who participated in the USA-Europe competition and walked away with the silver medal. She managed to pass the 4.70 metre pole and succeeded in distinguishing herself among the world’s greatest athletes. Stefanidi has been in great form recently, going from medal to medal. It’s worth pointing out that Miltos Tentoglou, who also participated in the competition, was able to come out second in the long jump, after an effort that was recorded at 8.13 metres.

SOCCEROOS
The Socceroos began their long journey to the 2022 World Cup qualification, on the good foot, in the Middle East on Wednesday morning with a 3-0 win over Kuwait. All of the Socceroos’ goals came in an enterprising first half performance.

SINNERS

GREEK FOOTBALL TEAM
The Michalis Valkanis-John van’t Schip duet couldn’t have dreamt of a worse start to their campaign on the Greek bench. The 1-0 loss in Finland was bad enough, but after that came a 1-1 home draw against Liechtenstein, a nation that barely has any professional players to speak of, to sink the national team into a greater state of misery. It seems the new training team will have their work cut out for them if they are to change the attitude within the dressing rooms, with players appearing unorganised and with no real game plan inside the pitch and with an uninterested attitude outside of it. In their statements after the game, the players appeared to have accepted their fate and with no real motivation to play for a team that once made the entire nation proud.

GREEK BASKETBALL TEAM
The same cannot be said for the Greek Basketball Team. The effort was made, that cannot be denied. However, due to many reasons that cannot be numbered in this small column, it was all doomed to fail from the start. The lack of a real game plan in the attack, the poor percentage in the 2-point and 3-point shooting, the good (and sometimes, harsh) defending on Giannis Antetokounmpo, and the incredible pressure on the players to come out with something good. All this added up and eventually lead to the early disqualification of a team that could have done much, much better, had they only believed in themselves. It might be a long time until we see the Greek Freak sporting the white-and-blue again.