• Ricky Rubio The base scoring explosion
  • Friendly Russia, the only defeat of Spain

How do you say Cinderella in Russian? Until the last game of preparation, Spain had prolonged that feeling of timid euphoria born of the famous, or infamous, windows in which the classification for the Mundobasket was settled between selections B from around the world, deprived of its Euroleague and NBA players . Spain has done almost everything well throughout this strange process, in full redefinition of world basketball, crushed by the wealth of the NBA and the dirty war between FIBA ​​and Euroleague. And the loss of Pau Gasol , who has come to complete the disappearance of all his glorious generation, seemed quite well compensated by the amalgam of collective and fighting game that Sergio Scariolo had achieved after recovering four players from the North American league.

In these that the Russians arrived, with a trained formation but that for a long time that does not count towards the great international titles, and with them the midnight for the Spanish Cinderella sounded. A very wide defeat, due to turnovers and ineffective shooting, was the result.

Naturally, and more with the circumstantial absences of Marc Gasol and Rudy Fernández , a defeat in a match of this nature has a relative meaning. It does not nullify the good things that had been discovered or intuited. But it returns us to a reality in which this selection of 2019 does not figure among the top candidates, it would already have great merit reaching the semifinals, and would overcome all the previous feats if it achieved gold.

With its entire hosts, Serbia is objectively superior. With his young talent, if the United States achieves - not so simple - adaptation to a great FIBA ​​championship, it is also a better man for man. And the presence of Giannis Antetokounmpo alone is enough to project the excellent Greek team to the first level.

If logic prevails, this must be a transition tournament for Spain ... which also could not take very far, because the hypothetical successors of the gold juniors are not in China, but several veterans who for years were their substitutes, the who stayed at home by reducing the workforce to 12. The team exceeds an average age of 30 years. It is not the future. We can hope that, led by a perfect Gasol and Ricky Rubio , it will be at least this year's.

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  • Basketball World Cup 2019
  • Spanish Basketball Team
  • Marc Gasol
  • Giannis Antetokounmpo
  • Ricky Rubio
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  • basketball

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