Red Towers

He may have been born in Thessaloniki (with roots from the town of Grevena), but as the son of a military officer, Panagiotis Fasoulas got used to moving from city to city at a very early age. And yet, when he swapped Thessaloniki for Piraeus in 1993, it would turn out

He’d build a life for himself there, both personally and professionally. And once he’d put down roots in Greece’s largest port, he had no interest in moving anywhere else, because after his six seasons playing for the Reds, plus his four years as mayor of Thessaloniki (2006 – 2010), the “spider” of Greek basketball found his port of call in Piraeus, both figuratively and literally. This is where he raised his beautiful family—his children Mariella and Yannis—with his wife Masha.

A bohemian by temperament, a rebel (usually with a cause), a man who wore his heart on his sleeve and never hesitated to speak his mind, however costly it might prove to do so, he made himself an easy target for lesser men in search of a scapegoat. Indeed, his clashes with coaches, including Dúšan Ívkovič at PAOK and Olympiacos, and Efthymis Kioumourtzoglou with the national squad are the stuff of legend.

His uncompromising nature often left Fasoulas vulnerable—first and foremost to himself and the thoughts he simply couldn’t keep to himself, even if he knew he’d be sent off for sharing them. Take the time when PAOK was playing the best basketball in Europe, and when the reporters starting asking him questions after a game against Pau-Orthez, he said: “Don’t ask me, ask… the wise man,” pointing at Ívkovič, with whom he was almost never on good terms. Still, in that split second, Fasoulas had bestowed a nickname his Yugoslav coach would take with him wherever he went for years, even if he was being ironic when he coined it.

In 1994, he quit the Greek national team, saying “It’s either him or me,” with the ‘him’ being Efthymis Kioumourtzoglou. On that occasion, the federation’s president at the time, Giorgos Vasilakopoulos, supported his player over his coach. The national team ended up going to the World Cup in Canada with Makis Dendrinos on the bench; Fasoulas played the basketball of his life and Greece finished 4th in the world.

He played for Greece 243 times, scoring 2,389 points (an average of 9.83 points per game). His last game in the blue and white strip was in the play-off for third place against the USA at the 1998 World Championship in Athens. He came out with another classic line at the 1995 EuroBasket, after losing the semi-final to the Serbs in overtime: “Instead of supporting us, the crowd were eating crisps and gawping at the show!”

Argiris Kambouris with the ball being guarded by Kostas Patavoukas, during a game against AEK Athens.

He left PAOK after they lost the 1993 championship. That came a short while after they’d lost the European championship at the Peace and Friendship Stadium in Neo Faliro, defeated by Benetton in the semi-final of the Final Four. The fans dubbed him a “traitor” when he left for Olympiacos, and it was a living hell for him every time the Reds traveled to Thessaloniki. As his teammates used to say, jokingly but serious, too: “We’ll have an easy time of it—everyone will be on Panagiotis’ case again”!

He may have won the first titles of his career with PAOK, but it was at Olympiacos that he reached the very top with the triple crown of 1997, when he lit those famous cigars in Rome after the Reds’ bested Barcelona in the final.

His basketball nickname was “spider”, because of his slightly smaller torso in comparison to his very long arms and legs, which just went on and on. It was his height that got him into basketball in an era when tall players were few and far between. He ascended to the very pinnacle of his sport with Olympiacos, winning four championships (1993-94, 1994-95, 1995-96, 1996-97), with a golden season in 1996-97 when Olympiacos won the Euroleague in Rome and the double at home in Greece. Equally important moments in his career include a gold medal at the 1987 Athens EuroBasket and a silver in the same competition in 1989 in Zagreb.

When the Olympiacos team didn’t make the best of starts in its campaign to earn a place in Rome, suffering some bad early defeats, Fasoulas got his teammates together and took them out to a bouzouki music hall. The experience helped unite them into a team, and something clicked. Things started to go their way after that.

With Olympiacos, he played in 190 games in the Greek League, scoring 1,632 points (8.6 per game) and grabbing 1,317 rebounds (6.9 per game). In Europe, he played 105 games in the red and white jersey, scoring 885 points (8.4 per game) and stealing 613 rebounds (5.8 per game).

Born on the island of Astypalaia and raised in Piraeus, Argiris Kambouris ascended to the realms of the sports world’s “Olympus” that night

An image that will live rent free in the head of practically every Greek sports fan was the moment when Argiris Kambouris blows on his hands to dry the sweat before making the most crucial free throws of his career.

The EuroBasket final against the Soviet Union at the Peace and Friendship Stadium is tied 101-101 in overtime with just 4 seconds left on the clock, and the Olympiacos team captain has won two free throws off a foul by Goborov.

Even though only 59% of his shots have gone in on the night, he makes the first one and holds his hands up high, turning to the stands in celebration. He sinks the second one in, too, and runs back into the defense, celebrating on the way. Sergejus Jovaiša’s shot hits the… rim and Greece are European champions for the first time ever – a colossal accomplishment for 1987.

All thanks to the touch of that “honorable giant”, as the late sportscaster Filippos Syringos christened him then and there in his anxiety, before Kambouris took his free throws: “Victory is in the hands of this honorable giant.”

Victory in the case meant the EuroBasket trophy in moments that live on in fans’ collective memory, no matter how many decades have passed by since. Teammate Nikos Filippou couldn’t bear to watch, while other players, Stavropoulos and Fasoulas, couldn’t look away, their anxious expressions soon giving way to joy.

Born on the island of Astypalaia and raised in Piraeus, Argiris Kambouris ascended to the realms of the sports world’s “Olympus” that night, and never fully returned to mortal realms. We’re talking about a player who always gave 101% on the court, who committed himself body and soul. He didn’t have the glamour of a Nikos Galis or a Panagiotis Giannakis, but when he was scrambling for a rebound (like the one he manged from Goborov) he had the courage of a thousand lions.

And he wasn’t afraid to take responsibility—how could he be, since he started helping his dad out on a construction site when he was just a kid, so they could put food on the table for his large family?

Panagiotis Fasoulas and Argiris Kambouris in the summer of 1987, when the Greek national basketball team realized dreams can come true.

Everything went going right for him and he would go on to captain the team he loved (and served for 14 seasons, half of them during the title-less “barren years”), winning three championships and one Cup, which he got to brandish first as team captain.

He joined the Reds’ youth teams young, and started making his dreams come true early. In 1979, he was given a place in Olympiacos’ first team and he set about proving he belonged there with sheer hard work. In spent the 1980-81 season on loan to Glyfada, and returned to Olympiacos with lots of experience under his belt and title-ready. Astonishingly, Kambouris was still playing professional basketball 15 years later, completing the 1995-96 for Peristeri before announcing his retirement from the court.

But he never left the Reds. When he’d hung up his jersey, he took charge of Olympiacos’ academies and served as technical adviser to its youth teams. He even opened a sporting goods store in Nikaia, which he called “Free Throw”.

In the 10 years he played for the national team, he took part in three European Championships (1987, 1989, 1991) and two World Championships (1986, 1990), playing 131 games and scoring 529 points in all. Of course, the highlights were the gold medal in 1987 and the silver in 1989.

As a coach, he started out at Agioi Anargyroi, taking the team from Attica’s second regional division into the Greek Third Division. He also worked at Egaleo, Elefsina and Niki Amarousiou. Since 2002, he has been employed in Olympiacos’ infrastructure departments. He also played an active role in the Club’s subsidiary team, Olympiacos II.

His son Nikos Kambouris followed in his father’s footsteps and played in the Basket League wearing the colors of Kolossos Rhodes; he also played in Olympiacos’ development team. In the summer of 2024, he hung up his trainers at Iraklis and took over as head coach for a time. As of December 2024, he has been a member of Athinaikos’ coaching staff.