MADRID, 7 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish women’s basketball coach, Miguel Méndez, stated this Wednesday about the imminent Eurobasket that “the pressure in its right measure is beneficial for everyone”, pointing out that the players in his squad “have to get used to living” with the “demand that means “to wear the Spain shirt.
“We aspire to repeat it or to continue it, I don’t know which is the way”, Méndez analyzed the good moment of his pupils in the preparation for this Eurobasket. “And the pressure… blessed pressure. I think that the pressure in its right measure is beneficial for everyone because it makes us think a little further, we want to not only repeat it but improve it if possible,” he argued during ‘Media Day’ in the Spanish selection.
“If it can be playing better basketball than we have played in these games, then perfect. I think the players have to get used to living with this demand that wearing this jersey means and representing so many people who are behind. And what Spanish basketball around the world always places you in the top positions in the ranking”, he added.
“I tried not to have too high expectations because the League has been very tough. Having a 16-team League is very positive for many things: for Spanish basketball, to bring professional basketball to many places, so that there is more space for all , for some foreign players, but above all for many national players. But it is also true that she is very ‘determinative’, as they say in Italy”, he qualified.
Thus, Méndez said that this supposes “obviously a lot of work, with many games, especially the big teams, which also have European competition practically non-stop from October to May.” “And it’s true that we were a bit worried about the mental and physical state of the players,” he added, admitting that the objective is “to work little by little” and “in a very progressive way”, in a plan designed “both in volume of work and intensity”.
We try to keep our feet on the ground. Think that we come from a last tough championship, from a last summer where both in the Olympic Games and in the European Games the team was below what it usually was. But also with very high standards because we come from the best era of Spanish women’s basketball, used to always winning a medal,” Méndez warned.
Méndez stressed that the members of his coaching staff are “embedded in this change forced by the withdrawal of many of those historic players.” He also acknowledged “certain problems in the interior position above all”, but stressing that this makes them “be very humble, as this team has always been, but with some prudence”.
“The results have surely helped us to work happier, but I think we have to do a second reading,” Méndez warned, alluding to the fact that in their last game against Belgium not all the rivals were on the field. “But hey, very happy. As I said, you work much better with positive results, at least with smiles you work much better,” he insisted on the matter.
“It’s my first time with the national team, I’m going with the same prudence and the same humility that I ask of them. I’m really looking forward to it and I think the team is too. It’s something new too, there are players who have participated in other Europeans, they’ve been players who pushed the team a lot, like Silvia Domínguez, like Laura Gil, like Alba Torrens”, she told reporters.
In the same way, he pointed out that other players “have been in championships without the role they are going to have in this one.” “I think that this is also one more incentive and that pushes them to try to put everything on the field. And I am noticing that, that the players are giving everything on a physical level and being very professional. I think there is also a point of I want everything to go well, which I don’t know if it’s usual, because as I say it’s my first time, but I’m very satisfied with it,” he declared.
“I already said in the presentation, and I stand by it, that the objective is to win every game we play, of course. This is a team that, despite making a change of team, has made a change of role in many of the players who are here. It’s a very, very ambitious team. We represent Spanish basketball which, as I said, in recent years is used to playing good basketball above all and then also achieving many things”, he stressed.
“We want to win everything we play. But hey, as I said, you have to mix it up and you have to balance it with being humble and being prudent because we don’t know very well what we are going to find. We know that all the teams, minor and midfield, They want to play against Spain and they want to beat us and they play without pressure against us,” Méndez highlighted.
The coach added that “there are also teams that have not been able to win for a few years, like France or Belgium for example, who go with the knife between their teeth thinking that it could be a good opportunity for them.” “Let’s see what we find,” Méndez predicted just before praising the captain Alba Torrens.
“She is one of the historical players that we have. I have known her for many years, I have worked a lot with her, when she was a Chicho Terremoto and later already a full-fledged woman. I think that in her career she has managed to be both : to be that cannon, meddler, exceptional in the sense of being something different from everything else and capable of solving matches; and I have also seen her occupy a different role and be behind other great world figures willing to do whatever and occupy a more discreet role,” he said.
Finally, Méndez was also happy with regard to the last stage of the preparation before the Eurobasket: “I want to see the team in those circumstances also because the idea is to prepare it for anything that can happen in a European Championship, any misfortune in of injuries and that there are other people who have to climb steps suddenly. And any event that may happen, well, the team must be strong and can solve it”.
“I think the pressure is positive. What I think is that we have all enjoyed this team. And the work of this team has been the work of everyone, the work of all Spanish basketball, of course, but the work of the that they were there directly, both the players and the coaching staff. I think it has been, as I say, the best streak, the best moment, the best stage of Spanish basketball in its history”, he reiterated about the legacy that he has had to collect.
“I believe that an ambitious, talented coaching staff unafraid of making decisions has never come together with a group of players from different generations, but closely followed over time, who have put together the right measure of alchemy, talent, desire to compete, of maximum commitment to come every summer. I think that this is very difficult to repeat”, concluded the coach.