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SPORT
April 20, 2000
 Zarko Paspalj |
In the great finals of a basketball tournament at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, national teams of Yugoslavia and the USA clashed.
On one side there was the American "dream-team" with the stars like Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Shaquille O`Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Scottie Pippen,…
They were opposed by the selection of a country with twice less population than the USA had active players. Vlade Divac, Dejan Bodiroga, Predrag Danilovic, Zarko Paspalj, Aleksandar Djordjevic and their team mates knew that they had minimal chances of surprising the Americans, but they did not give up in advance. To the remark made by one of the journalists that the Yugoslav representation was the European "dream-team", the captain, Aleksandar Djordjevic, answered jestingly: "We are the nightmare of the "dream-team".
Vlade Divac (12) shoots over Barkley and Robinson |
Unfortunately, sensation did not happen, although for the whole half an hour it seemed that it would not be just one more convincing victory of the Olympic Games host.
From the beginning the match had an unexpected turn for about 35.000 spectators in "Georgia Dome" in Atlanta, and for those several hundreds of millions of people who watched the game on television. Yugoslavia dictated the rhythm, led 21-14 and 23-16. In those moments, forward Zarko Paspalj, the best scorer of the Yugoslav representation in the finals (19 points) was successful from all positions thus making the players of the opponent team agitated.
In the end the game was decided by a larger choice of quality players on the American representation bench. Already at the beginning of the second part Divac was fouled out, Zeljko Rebraca and Dejan Tomasevic were too inexperienced to deal equally with strong centers of the American representation, and Zoran Savic could not help his team mates in the finals because of his knee injury.
Olajuwon in the middle of the second half, with eight points in a row, brought ten points advantage for the Americans, and thus the winner was decided. The game ended with a score 95-69 (43-38), the USA won gold, Yugoslavia silver and Lithuania bronze medal.
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