International Career: Greek National Team (1996-98, 2004-08)
Panagiotis Yannakis was a leading player on Greece’s gold-medal winning side at the 1987 European Championship. He played a record 251 times and scored 5,307 points for the national side.
After an emotional last game for Greece at the 1996 Olympics against Brazil, Yannakis became the coach and in his first stint, guided the team to the semi-finals at the 1998 FIBA World Championship in Athens. He returned shortly before the 2004 Olympics for his second spell in charge and led the side into the quarter-finals. Yannakis’ Greece won gold at EuroBasket 2005 in Belgrade before famously upsetting the United States at the semi-finals of the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan. After a fourth-place finish at EuroBasket 2007, Yannakis guided the National Team to convincing wins over Lebanon, Brazil, New Zealand and Puerto Rico at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Athens. After Greece were then being drawn in Group B with the United States, Spain, Angola, China and Germany, Yannakis said: “We are a team that wants to play against the very best; we are not picky about our opponents.”
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