In a long and relaxed chat on the microphones of Panini Sport Italia, Daniel Hackett he returned to talk about his visceral bond with Greece, a land where basketball is not just a sport, but a sort of civil religion that transcends national borders.
Daniel Hackett: The Olympiacos Experience and Basketball Culture
Between a pack of stickers and a souvenir of his experience at theOlympiacos, Daniel Hackett revealed how much the Greeks’ love for this game may border on the incredible, giving as an example an episode experienced during a holiday that testifies to the maniacal attention also reserved for foreign championships, especially the Italian one:
After my experience in Italy, playing there was something unreal because basketball, as they experience it there in Greece, is definitely something that needs to be experienced, something that needs to be seen live. I was on vacation in Greece a few years ago and the Italian championship final was being broadcast on Greek television, the national television! It gives you a sense of how crazy they are about basketball, it’s a wonderful thing. The derbies Athens Then they are something incredible, sometimes they almost reach the point of exaggeration: nets around the pitch, firecrackers, smoke bombs… they try to create an intimidating atmosphere for the away team that, moreover, doesn’t have the support of its own fans”
Basketball in Greece: Beyond Sport
This testimony reminds us that, while we often look overseas for the spectacle, there is a beating heart of European basketball where Cheering is so primal that it becomes an integral part of the gaming experience.
Daniel Hackett, with his usual lucidity, highlights how Greece represents a unique situation in the world basketball scene, where every match becomes an event full of tension and meaning.
Being an idol in Athens means becoming part of a very strong collective identity., capable of transforming even a “simple” Italian championship final into a national prime-time event. Basketball, in some places, ceases to be a game and becomes a universal language, spoken with the intensity of a smoke bomb lit in the stands.