Fenerbahçe lost twice in three days. Valencia on Tuesday, eighty-six to seventy-eight. Real Madrid on Thursday, ninety-five to seventy-six. They are on six wins and three defeats in the EuroLeague, and their coach, Sarunas Jasikevicius, told EuroLeague TV that his team had no identity, that for now it was “a bunch of very big names”.
I’m not jealous, I’m a club president. But a bunch of big names, at our place, doesn’t exist, mind you. At our place, there are first names. The one who opens the club bar, the one who does the till, the one who drives the minibus, and the minibus starts. Nobody has a big name. Everybody has a job.
He also said they had to find a way to play for one another, that individual quality wouldn’t be enough. That, I understood straight away. On a youth Saturday, nine till six, if everyone does what they can do on their own, you end up with twelve flasks of coffee and not one chair stacked. A club’s identity, at our place, is the list of volunteers pinned up next to the price list at the club bar. It has gaps, but it holds.
I’m not saying they need a list like that in Istanbul. I’m saying someone over there also turns the lights off after a game that was lost, and that’s a team. They host Baskonia next week. I wish them a good game, and someone for the flask.
For me, it’s freezing in the hall, and I’ve still got the volleyball chairs to stack before I hand back the key.
It’s true, we checked: BasketNews.
