Ricardo MolinelliValencia, Jun 28 (EFE) .- The Spanish women’s basketball team has lived in the Olympus of success for the last seven years, chaining podiums and medals in a time of wine and roses that has been turned into gall in a championship in house, in Valencia.
The Spanish team has traveled this time in the limousine of the winners and, suddenly, it has been left with glamor and tinsel for “small details”, as stated by the president of the Spanish Federation, Jorge Garbajosa.
Circumstances were adverse from the outset, with little preparation and two positives for Covid by Tamara Abalde and Alba Torrens five days after the start of the Eurobasket that decentered the team, which was practically confined to daily PCR and without normal training until the beggining.
The basket at the last moment of the nationalized Belarusian Alexandria Bentley in the first game ended up disrupting all the plans and the planned crosses. The missed free kick in the quarterfinals against Serbia, led to an adverse extension and in the match against Russia he went ahead on the scoreboard for more than 25 minutes.
All this is true and also that other players were missing who have been very important in the team such as Anna Cruz, Marta Xargay and Laura Nichols, which has caused a renewal in the team that, perhaps, was scheduled for later.
But the matches last forty minutes and there are hundreds of mistakes and successes of their own and others, also from the referees, who should not look away only at those specific events at the end.
Luck, an ally in these honey days, also missed his appointment with the Spanish team.
Serbia took advantage of their quality to honor Sonja Vasic, who has announced her retirement from basketball after the Tokyo Olympics, and win the gold medal against a French team that continues with its particular curse by being runner-up for the fifth time in a row! Belgium took the bronze medal award.
The Eurobasket is already history, but the best thing is that this bitterness can be reversed almost immediately, at the Tokyo Olympics where Spain can once again find the sweetness of success. The distance that separates honey from bile is only “a tad”, as Garbajosa pointed out.