Kostas Papanikolaou gives emotional speech after Greece clinch a spot in World Cup / News - Basketnews.com

Kostas Papanikolaou gave an inspiring speech in the locker room after Greece beat Belgium in the FIBA World Cup European Qualifiers.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

Kostas Papanikolaou gave an inspiring speech after Greece beat Belgium and punched a ticket to the 2023 FIBA World Cup.

Kostas Papanikolaou

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As a team captain, Papanikolaou thanked the players for their effort who helped Greece to qualify for the upcoming World Cup.

"I want to say thank you.To all of you," Papanikolaou began. "For those of you who come to the windows, I understand how difficult it is for you to have this pressure.If you win, they say 'nothing happened, the national team won, it's normal' and if you lose, they say 'these guys can't do it.'"

"It's great of you to come and try.We only say goodbye to the journalists, but at some point, the credit must come from our side as well.A big respect from me.Thank you very much," he added.

Greece and Latvia are two teams from Group I that clinched a spot in the 2023 FIBA World Cup.

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