Euroleague Final Four 2024 -The jersey

One thing I am getting good at as I get older is to learn to live with uncertainty. Rather liberating really… Ride the wave and it takes you places. And that is how I find myself today on a plane to meet, who else, The Brother… On route to Berlin…

Certain stories write themselves and this is one of them… So of course I will take The Jersey with me… Let’s rewind. The day before… After an outlier hectic week, it is only the day before that my mind rests on the jersey.. Let’s do this… With the help of the All Almighty Queen, we start our quest to get our hands on The Jersey…. How hard can it be? The two Fenerium stores on the other side, where The Queen makes her work residence, it turns out, are not carrying basketball jerseys… There are two huge Fenerium stores on our side of the pond, so no worries… Our almost neighborhood store, located under FB football stadium, only has navy and white jerseys, which is not happening. We are still left with The Store at The Ülker Arena though… All is well… And yes, they do have the classic yellow navy çubuklu jerseys… So please, lets put the magic letters and numbers on it and we are done… How hard can that be? It turns out The Store can not print 3, and I need two of them.. Hmm OK… So… how about we get the jersey from this one, and get the printing done on the other one… that should work, right? Right, but it turns out the other store can not print the letters A and E… Come on! Really? Really… So unless I am taking a Clths jersey to Berlin, we are stuck… But The Queen is The Queen, and she has mighty friends.. Enter Mr A, a dear friend with connections to the Club, who thinks he got this… Yes, let’s do this… There has to be a jersey with the name The Bald Eagle already printed on it, somewhere in this ancient city, right? No, apparently… As we are waiting for the jersey to be delivered 30 min before my ride to the airport the next day, we learn that this is going to take longer as the letters are still in-the-process –of-getting-printed… Come on, seriously… Well, I tried… But The Queen does not take no as an answer, and a new plan is hatched where the jersey will be delivered to the airport in that flimsy 15 minutes or so I have to spare, before I have to go in…. What is happening here? So I find myself in the middle of a story that gloriously writes itself… Seinfeld Gold. But wait, it gets better… So here I am, boarding pass at hand, waiting at this side of a security for a precious delivery…. And it comes, pretty close to do or die time… And here it is… The Jersey…. gloriously inching towards me on a security belt…. Yes. YES. I grab the navy Fenerium bag, quickly take The Jersey out, which seems to emanate a magical power, putting a huge smile on my face, and rush to passport, only to get a call from Mr. C, who kindly delivered the jersey to me couple of minutes ago… There is another bag for me, delivered by a motor courier, because apparently the other one…. I do not listen, but rush back to security, to get the second delivery… I am not making this up, I CAN NOT make this up…. And ladies and gentlemen, this is the story of how I ended up carrying two almost identical Calathes jerseys on my way to Berlin…