- Chronicle: Spain shouts again ba-lon-ces-to: world champion after crushing Argentina
- Rudy Fernández: His most difficult summer: the death of his grandfather and the abortion of his sister
- Ricky and Marc.The couple that reconquered the world
- Opinion: Saitama made them giants, Beijing makes them eternal
- 1x1. The notes of the 12 heroes of the selection
- Pau Gasol. "What a way to enjoy, you are the best!"
- Scariolo. "The team has sacrificed; we knew about our talent limitations"
Although the world gold of 2019 forces to return to the world gold of 2006, in search of the spring, or 2001, when Pau Gasol and Juan Carlos Navarro take their first podium (European bronze), the channel starts in the depth of the rock, in an invisible substrate, 1999. Then it forms a form of belonging to the national team without which this unreadable time is not explained, extended during 20 championships (14 podiums), that is, based on the commitment of many , sustained, recurring, decades !, with the selection.
Let's repeat it: 20 years; We were imberbes and we grew gray. This Spain has been lasting, and it fills, a life; They are three generations of players engaged and bequeatting arms to prolong a historic-world exceptional.
Let's say it one last time: 20 years; Babies who already vote, children who are fathers, mothers who are grandmothers. We come from far away, apprentices of Alberto Herreros, Nacho Rodríguez, Alfonso Reyes ..., who illuminated a loyal feeling, of full dedication, of festive atmosphere, generous with the collective and of a reach superior to their European silver in 1999; exceeds its limitations and bankruptcies. That deep bond with the team of every summer was his contribution, immediately filtered in Jorge Garbajosa (now president of the Federation) or Carlos Jiménez (forever, the Capi ), and that added to the talent of the next generation illuminated the prodigy of an era. But someone like Pau or Navarro, vertices of a generalized exponential talent; they, like a Nowitzki and so many other geniuses, are worth several podiums themselves, but, but, but, golds need persistence - hence the relevance of commitment - and good company, the two paths that lead to the 2006 world title, Where there is no choice but to return. We do not go back chasing a chive nostalgia, which would be unfair to those in force and a superior absurdity when the present is alive, but in search of why: there we learned to win.
Until 2006, they had spent six finals in vain, and since that time five of the eight disputed (two ceded before henchmen of the Dream Team ) were gold. In the semifinal of 2006 against Argentina, the semifinal of 2019 against Australia began to be won: without the accumulated competitive wisdom, such an ugly match would never have been won. And we know that Marc Gasol had been playing the 2019 semifinal since he was resurrected for basketball in the 2006 national team. As we also know that Sergio Scariolo's zone and mixed defenses against Australia in 2019 are those of Pepu Hernández against Greece in 2006, that is, they reveal the need for a coach to do much more than not spoil a fanfare of stars.
We recognize in the consistency before Argentina that lived before Greece, in two gold finals and 'procedure'; we warn in the words of Ricky Rubio - "this is only basketball, but it can be an example of life" - an update seen by everyone in the 2006 team; We discovered yesterday's choral exercise (starting with Oriola ) a sequel to that inexhaustible litter, from Pau to Carlos Cabezas or Berni Rodríguez . And we felt in the safety of the cross-stares of Ricky Rubio-Llull-Rudy-Marc Gasol-Claver in an agonizing double extension against Australia the complicity of the looks of Felipe-Pau-Navarro-Calderón-Mumbrú while playing a game of pocha in 2006. None like that one that they disputed on the parquet of Saitama, after sliding on the platform while Pau, arms in cross, palms to the sky, thanked the gift, the aid, the rescue.
The selection became a place of shelter, where to return after a bad year, to recover the competitive breath, or to crown a season of NBA or Euroleague ring. House. The fidelity of someone like Pau is completely unusual. Or Ricky's. Or Marc. Or Calderón. Or from Llull, Rudy, Reyes , Navarro, Jiménez, Garbajosa, Sergio Rodríguez ... So the resignations - there were, there are -, almost always rightly reasoned, punctual, however, were irrelevant, except when it was Pau Gasol, until now essential, which allows to establish the point of bankruptcy between the two world titles. Another Spain is possible.
The gold of 2006 is incomparable. Because it was the first time and for all the sentimental load that framed it: Pau's injury in the semifinals; Navarro telling him in the ear, minutes later, in the locker room, "Sunday we win for you"; the intimate duel of Pepu Hernández, and hidden from the team for his good, after the death of his father in the early morning before the final; the hachimaki tapes that Felipe , Berni, Mumbrú and Sergio bought and all knotted their hair in the celebration; those lucky Daruma, that Yuko, the interpreter, gave to all the members of the selection; the MVP that 'played' the final on crutches and the shirts with the "Pau also plays"; Pepu's hand on his chest while the mourning anthem sounded ... Upon arriving in Madrid, that basic cry of eternal love and rebellion in a country of monoculture: "ba-lon-ces-to!", before 100,000 people , according to the authorities. And then the Prince of Asturias award - it was Prince - is Rey - but, above all, the image of those present holding the shirts of those who were not.
Incomparable 2006, because Andrés Montes was there and 10 years ago he left -Antoni Daimiel relieves-. The gold of Japan was an unrepeatable party, with the protagonist in a wheelchair and his crutches turned into a battering ram with which Nowitzki - you always have to blame someone - hit ceilings and lamps on the 14th floor of the Urawa Royal Pines of Saitama , while the fire extinguishers unbuttoned for the foam party. "You pay anything," said José Luis Sáez , the president of the Federation, when he was warned of the bill that would come. For gestures like that, and other more thoughtful ones that contributed to strengthen the commitment, of all the successes that are something corresponds to Sáez - which puts his asterisk and nuance. Sáez is gone, as none of the members of that coaching staff or the assistants are; Only a dozen special envoys can boast the double -Domingo Pérez (Abc), in memoriam -. Everything was happening, to confirm that no one can feel that he enjoyed it, that only they are essential. The idea survived, giants giving themselves the witness, incorruptible.
Incomparable 2006, can it be improved? Why not. Because the gold of 2019 is fraught with the promise of the definitive, of the Olympic in 2020, with the heroes of Beijing, and with Pau, with Sergio Rodríguez , with Ibaka (probably) ... Unbeatable gold of 2019, because it came from an overflow of the expectation; because it was consumed without Pau-nor Navarro, nor Reyes, nor Calderón ...-, an argument to overcome any complex; because, in short, it is a sowing, which emerges in words like those of Juancho Hernangómez after the semifinals: "It was probably the best game I've ever lived in my life." That memory, which he never prescribes, is a guarantee to see him as a national team for years, to prolong the happiness of a team, which, above all, had the power to break the last. In the individual, it is not difficult to find in each piece (see now in Ricky or Claver ) a clear growth, which moved to a Benjamin Button set, which always ended up denying the logic, biology, the rigors of the business, the corsets of the physical...
We begin to intuit that we will not see another football World Cup, that after Alonso the reality remains and that Nadal is an infinite without successor. The normal. Therefore, it was reasonable to think that the gold of 2006 would be unrepeatable. However ... Three European golds, two silver and one Olympic bronze came, this gold. All that with Scariolo.
There is no Spain like this. There is nothing to tell grandchildren, they are watching
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