Argentina – Panama, qualifiers for the Basketball World Cup: the team walked along the ledge and Carlos Delfino rescued it

Rigid, tense faces. The play off It is a trauma for Argentina. The team of Nestor “Che” Garcia He doesn’t find confidence or game yet. He has a hard time expressing himself and his movements are unnatural on the court. In a window in which the drama was the main protagonist, and after the very hard slap that Venezuela applied to him, walked the ledge versus Panama. He looked towards the precipice, swayed and almost fell. He flirted with a defeat that would have been an almost insurmountable obstacle to reach the 2023 World Cup… but he was saved by the Golden Generation. Yes, Charles Delphineto the 39 yearsrescued a selected who seemed desperate and aimless, to get a suffered triumphby 65 to 58.

The mood factor seems decisive. As if the direct to the chin that she received against the Venezuelans (58-71 on Friday night) had left her semi anesthetized, the team entered the field wobbly and full of doubts.

Once again the pace of the game was managed by their rival and the local team at the Obras Sanitarias stadium had to go down on the scoreboard for almost the entire game. A moment served to graph the nervousness that dominated everyone. With the result 41 to 38 in favor of Panama, with just over five minutes remaining in the third quarter, Nicholas Brussino He went on his way to the hoop alone… but the ball slipped out of his hands. Garcia turned around and kicked a chair. He blew up everything above her.

Just as the game against Venezuela was tarnished by the fierce physical fight, in the second match the humidity brought about grotesque moments. With players from both sides slipping or losing the ball.

Argentina vs. Panama conversions

Panama read the lesson that Venezuela had given the Argentines in the first crossing of this window and also proposed a lot of physical contact, although not with such intensity. The worrying thing for the local is that he never managed to gain control of the shares. Many times it was Panama that did and arranged, while Argentina, in the best of cases, was able to exchange blow for blow at a dizzying pace, which is not convenient at this time.

When the ball burned in the hands of the majority, it seemed that for the sky-blue team there was no way to turn the score around and that World Cup hope was sinking in the mud. but it emerged Charles Delphine with four four triples in a row between the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the last. It was another forceful metaphor: he allowed his companions to lift their heads out of the mud and suck in a breath of air to feel alive.

reacted Marcos Delia (9 points and 6 rebounds), with a brilliant defense; as well Mark Kills (13 points), with his experience and poise. And Brussino (10 points), who hit a game-breaking three-pointer with just 56 seconds remaining.

“We have a hard time finding the game. You have to learn to win like that, playing badly. There are too many things to correct and get better. It is a very large shirt and it costs…”, recognized Delfino (15 points), the captain and the man who saved the selected team from a very delicate situation.

To understand the difficulties that Argentina would have gotten into if it had lost to Panama, it is worth reviewing the points for and against that the team has from now on.

Albiceleste’s qualification for China 2019 was so loose and the world runner-up position raised the spirits of the team so much that, for a moment, someone may have forgotten how difficult the tie became with the new system imposed by FIBA.

Che García’s Argentina, without time to work and with many setbacks, allowed itself a cry of relief and emerged from a window that, otherwise, would have greatly compromised its classification. It seems exaggerated to remember it, but the last time the team was left out of a World Cup was in 1982. Today, with the result set, it seems that there are no reasons to think that such a thing can be repeated, but the tension on the face of each member of the squad suggests that this ghost may have flown over their minds. The scare seems to have passed… at least for now.