MADRID, 27 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The national men’s basketball coach, Sergio Scariolo, assured that they will face “naturally, with a lot of humility, a lot of concentration and a lot of respect for their rivals” the Pre-Olympic that they will face in July 2024 in Valencia, but warned that they must “analyze why” on the vast majority of recent occasions the host of this competition “has not qualified” for the Olympic Games.
“The first obligatory step at a sporting level, however, will of course be to analyze why in 6 of the 7 previous Pre-Olympics, the home team has not qualified despite being a team with great quality and in theory, even sometimes, on many occasions the strongest of the group. It is an important reflection and a very forceful number for it not to be worthy of analysis,” said Scariolo after the draw in statements provided by the FEB.
The Italian coach stressed that they will try to “naturally assume the goal of qualifying for the Olympic Games,” but also “with a lot of humility, a lot of concentration at work and a lot of respect for their rivals.”
In this sense, he believes that “different options” came out of the hype for the interests of the current European champion. “For example, in the third with Finland, in the sixth with Bahamas, which is surely the strongest of that pot. Maybe in others a little less, but the point is not this, the point is to concentrate on preparation and have a great flexibility because we will have players who will arrive with a different level of activation, of freshness depending on how they have finished their competitions with the clubs,” he noted.
“We have to try to bring everything together very quickly and be able to compete, but preparing one match at a time obviously, starting with the one we will have in the first match and then thinking about the second and then in the crossover and in the final yes, like everyone we wish, we pass,” he warned.
Scariolo confirmed that “with this raffle the starting signal is given” for the preparation for the Games in which “everyone” is “very excited to be able to participate.” “Those of us who have already been to a few, those who haven’t yet and want to get started and, of course, because we want Spanish basketball in general and all the fans of Spain to have representation and be able to enjoy their team once again,” he stressed. he.
Furthermore, the coach congratulated “the FEB and all of Spanish basketball for the credibility it has achieved” and which has led Valencia to host one of the four Pre-Olympic Games. “A credibility forged on the field by the great results of all its teams, national team and club, and outside by an organizational capacity that has already been confirmed, repeated and reaffirmed in many fantastically organized events,” he indicated.
“The choice of the host city is unbeatable because Valencia is a basketball city with a great club, with fantastic solidity, at the men’s and women’s level, with a fan base that is very clear about how to support its teams and that I am sure that he will do it in July with the national team,” remarked the man from Brescia, who praised “the great passion and the great effort” of Juan Roig and his family to have “fantastic facilities” and that “later” they will culminate with the new pavilion.