Just two days ago Dimitris Giannakopoulos, president of Panathinaikos basketball club, gave a statement to the press where he expressed his wish to bring back Zeljko Obradovic to his old club for the upcoming season.

One of the reasons for this potential move lies behind the fact that in this case scenario the Greek side would have the opportunity to surpass Real Madrid on the all time Euroleague titles list.

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Panathinaikos fans, most of them part of the famous Gate 13 firm, expressed their utmost support of this idea. Tonight they welcomed back Obradovic to the town where he had some of his biggest Euroleague successes with the message: “King Is Back”. This just shows how much he means to the club and its supporters.

Besides the highly emotional welcoming party Panathinaikos managed to defeat Fenerbahce in a close contest with the final score set at 76:67 in favor of the greens. The all star team of Fener, led by Macedonian international and US native Bo McCalebb, was overpowered by the guard combo of Bramos and Diamantidis. They combined for 38 points and led Panathinaikos to their sixth victory in the Euroleague Top 16 phase.

Fenerbahce is now placed on the fifth spot in Group E of the Top 16 phase and it would be a rather complicated task to go through as a part of the best eight teams in the tournament this year. Things will go even worse if Olympiacos beats Laboral Kutxa and Unicaja loses from Barcelona in this round. Outcome that is highly probable and would leave three teams with an identical Win/Lose ratio.

The task for Zeljko Obradovic to prove that he can be the King of Istanbul as well got harder to accomplish after tonight’s game. He still stands as one of the best coaches in Europe and anything can be expected in the last three rounds of the Euroleague Top 16 phase.