Eurobasket 2005

I like a lot watching sports, but I’m not too passionate, except when it comes to the Spanish national basketball team. And today it was one of those days it’s nice to remember. 101-85 against Croatia in the quarter final of the Eurobasket 2005 that is taking place in Serbia & Montenegro, in a great game, with an overtime forced by Fran Vázquez in the last seconds, when all seemed lost for Spain.

All seemed to indicate Spain was going to take the same route as the other 3 first round groups’ leaders, all of them eliminated in the quarter finals in very ugly games (it is indeed curious that the 2 best teams, from what we’ve seen in the quarter finals have been Spain and Croatia, since the other 3 games were, well, “of low quality”), and the game started the same way, with Spain scoring only 11 points in the first quarter. But fortunately, the Spanish players reacted and won one of the best games I’ve seen in years.

Only bad thing was when the Croatians lost their nerves in the last minute of the overtime, following a foul on Gordan Giricek, when the crowd (Serbian) started to shout “Serbia, Serbia” (I guess there are still a lot of wounds to be closed between Serbians, Croatians and Bosnians), and the Croatian players and coach started to insult the referees. Bad end for a great game.

And tomorrow, semifinals against Germany. Let’s hope Dirk Nowitzki doesn’t break our hopes 🙂