So here we are in the Turkish city of Bursa, in the summer of 1993, trying to beat the odds and overcome the opponents that probably never even heard of Belarus. After being on that bus seat for 3 days, that first night in a hotel bed was a blessing. However, we found ourselves awake at 5 in the morning because it was a prayer time for Muslims and Mullah's voice from Minarets' speakers was encouraging the locals to wake up signifying the beginning of a new day.
In a certain way, it was a new day for all of us - it was time to prove that 3-times a day practices, minor and major injuries, long travel hours and everything else that comes with basketball - were worth fighting through. In the following week we took care of business by beating National 'Under 22' teams of Croatia, Romania, Poland and Czech Republic by an average margin of about 15-20 points, loosing only to a host Nation Turkey by a few. In sum, Belarus along with Turkey were the only two teams from our group that qualified for the final stage of the European 'Under 22' Championship that was later held in the former Yugoslavia Republic - Slovenia in the summer of 1994. A total of 16 teams had qualified and were a year away from meeting each other on the courts of three Slovenian cities - Maribor, Postojna and Ljubljana. As for my team, it jumped on the bus and safely made it back home to Belarus after enjoying that long 72-hour bus ride:)
"Out of curiosity" facts...
The support that Turkish National Team gets at home is unprecedented - fans bring their extended families to the game starting from kids, adults, elderly people and even neighbors - only to embrace their favorite players and experience a uniformed sense of unity among each other by chanting "Tur-ki-ye, Tur-ki-ye". It's a truly remarkable phenomenon and the 2010 World Championship hosted by Turkey had proved the case yet again showing that 60 million population can stand tall and support their team even though half of that people had never payed any attention to basketball before.
In the year 2000, my basketball career took me to Istanbul where I played for BJK Besiktas - Allen Iverson's current team - and was truly surprised by the amount of hatefulness and intolerance that Turkish fans of different Istanbul teams (especially Fenerbahce, Besiktas, Galatasaray) possess against each other. Some say it comes from historic European football rivalries, others blame it on flamboyant teenagers. The truth, as always, is somewhere in between.
Still, I know for a fact that one game in 2001, which I eventually participated in, could not begin because both teams were waiting for additional 200 policemen to arrive since our Besiktas fans reaped out about fifty plastic seats of newly constructed Fenerbahce gym and threw them down on the court during the teams warm ups. Moreover, Besiktas which has black&white team colors was able to persuade McDonald's to open its fast food restaurant in black&white theme inside of Besiktas football stadium because the yellow&red colors belong to arch-rival Galatasaray!
As they say, no comments...
In spite all of that, when it comes down to support Turkish National Team - united they stand!
To be continued...
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