Before the Dream Team’s first game at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Charles Barkley uttered the now iconic line.
“I don’t know anything about Angola,” he said in a press conference, “but Angola’s in trouble.”
Sir Charles set the tone ahead of the David vs Goliath contest but it was the notoriously outspoken Philadelphia 76ers star who found himself in trouble during the actual game.
Barkley, known for his aggressive playing style, got into a physical altercation with Angola’s Herlander Coimbra and threw an elbow into his chest.
Barkley’s elbow was met with loud boos from the Barcelona crowd and it drew a technical foul that ended a 31-point US run.
The lopsided demolition finished 116-48 to the US but the talking point was Barkley’s brutal hit.
250lb NBA superstar Barkley elbowing 174lb economics student Coimbra was a bad look for the all-conquering Team USA and not the image they wanted to portray to the rest of the world.
Barkley’s behaviour even drew the ire of his Dream Team teammates, including Michael Jordan, who thought the reckless Round Mound of Rebound was going to get kicked out of the Olympics.
“If he keeps this up, they’re going to throw him out of the Olympics,” Jordan said. “We’ve already created some ill feelings here, and that didn’t help.”
“We all tried to talk to him and say, hey, we still want to be liked,” MJ added.
“That team played dirty,” Barkley said in an NBC film.
“I said hey, dude, if you do that any more, I’m going to clock you. So he did it a couple more times, and I clocked him.”
To be fair to Barkley, he redeemed himself in the aftermath of the game, stopping to take a photo with Coimbra.
According to one reporter, ‘the two developed something of a bond in the years that followed, as the elbow made Coimbra a big deal in Angola.’
Barkley kept a lid on his emotions for the rest of the tournament and turned out to be the US’s best player, despite the fact they boasted some of the greatest players in NBA history including Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
The 11-time NBA All-Star was the team’s leading scorer in the tournament with 18 points per game as they steamrolled everyone en route to a gold medal.
The squad, widely regarded as the greatest sports team ever assembled, ended up beating their opponents by an average margin of 43.8 points per game.
Not only that, but their 117.3 average total points are still the highest in Olympics history.
The closest clash came in the gold medal match against Croatia, which they won 117-85.
Aside from the elbow, it was arguably Barkley’s greatest individual year too.
After the Olympics, he was traded from the 76ers to the Phoenix Suns and went on to win the 1993 NBA MVP award.
That same year Charles also reached his one and only NBA Finals but he was defeated by MJ’s Chicago Bulls in six games.
Years later it emerged he considered joining MJ and the Bulls in ’96.
Barkley returned to the Olympics in 1996 and once again led Team USA in scoring (12.4 points per game), as well as rebounds (6.6 per game) and field goal percentage (81.6 percent).
The team went undefeated to capture its second gold medal under Barkley’s leadership and thankfully this time around there weren’t any ugly incidents to overshadow the glory.