By George Adamopoulos / gadamopoulos@eurohoops.net
Following the final buzzer of the 2020-21 season of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague in Cologne, most players were focused on the bright lights, the trophy, and the locker room celebrations. But for Anadolu Efes forward Krunoslav Simon, the taste of victory in the championship game of the Final Four was missing a very specific ingredient. The 40-year-old former player recalled this hilarious story during the 12th edition of Final Four Stories by Stoiximan.
Despite playing for a club synonymous with the famous Turkish brewery, Simon found himself in a drought at the very moment of triumph. “Yes, it was strange that a team whose name is Anadolu Efes, it’s a beer team. We didn’t have one beer in the locker room,” he told Eurohoops.
A self-proclaimed ‘big beer fan’, Simon had visualized that first sip as a EuroLeague champion, only to find that the arena was dry and the local shops were shuttered. Driven by his thirst and a refusal to wait for the standard post-game formalities, the Croatian wing made a strange move. “I didn’t want to wait for the rest of my teammates to take a shower, so I walked to the hotel,” he remembered.
Carrying his personal trophy, he set off on foot, underestimating the distance. While his teammates were ‘showering, taking pictures, taking it easy, and celebrating’, Simon was trekking through Cologne. “I thought it was much closer, but in the end, it took me half an hour. So, they arrived in the same second as me.”
That walk back to the hotel was a quiet moment of reflection for a player who, just days earlier, feared everything had slipped away. In the semifinal against CSKA, Efes nearly collapsed after surrendering a massive 21-point lead. As Will Clyburn rose for the final shot, Simon experienced a flash of dread.
“I was there on the court, and I was thinking how we won against Real Madrid with a three-pointer in the last moment. When he took that shot, I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, this will turn back.’ How we won, now we’re going out,” he remembered his thoughts.
He admitted that the team had mentally checked out too early. “We were already thinking that the job is done,” mentioned Simon.
Luck held, the shot missed, and Efes moved on to face FC Barcelona. Before the final, head coach Ergin Ataman, who was on the verge of becoming the first Turkish-born head coach to win the title, delivered a message that stripped away the tactical complexity of the moment.
Simon remembered the speech as being ‘very, very simple’. In the locker room, Ataman told them, “Guys, we are where we wanted to be. We are a much better team than Barcelona. Individually, you are much better players than Barcelona players. So, you need to go out and show that.”
The simplicity proved prophetic. The Istanbul outfit defeated Barcelona, securing their place in history and setting off a journey that, for Simon at least, began with a long walk in search of a cold beer.