When you mention a team, first thing that comes in mind is effort. It’s needed to get 12 athletes getting together, and working as a team.

Each athlete has a goal, but being part of a team means having the same goal. Working to accomplish the same results and believing in each other that we can do it.

Back in Malta GSSE 2003, when the women’s team won the gold medal, I remember clearly the motto that we managed to share: “this is our house and here no-one can beat us”; training very hard two times a day late in the evening could only lead us to the motto.

The effort was great – all of us could think first ‘basketball’. We made a nation proud with our efforts and that led to great unexplainable joy; joy that anyone who was involved, or was only watching could feel.

Miracles could happen! Some believed it was. We prayed together; we cried together and smiled together. We had the courage to achieve a common goal and not personal glory. We learned from our coaches to be humble and united and believed that together we can make it.

Being the captain of this fantastic team makes me proud. Discipline was the order of the day, each one of us put effort in a goal no-one expected us to achieve.

Maltese turned up to support the team inside and outside the pavilion where a big screen was prepared for the occasion. They supported the team and we felt that we had an extra player on court. When the national anthem was played everyone sang his heart out, being part of this family I sometimes still can hear the echo in the pavilion when we train.

The effort was great, sometimes an unimaginable one but the joy that everyone felt was even greater than the sacrifices we all did. We did it as a team and made dreams come true!