At 27 years old, shooting guard Darío Brizuela (San Sebastián, 1994) lives his first European with the Spanish team “calmly”, a team that, according to what he assures in an interview with EFE, has managed to reach the quarterfinals of the championship thanks because the players have believed in themselves.
One day before playing for the pass to the semifinals against Finland, the Unicaja de Málaga player is hopeful about the chances of the national team’s medal in the Eurobasket, despite the fact that before its start he was not among the favorites.
“Spain is a team that will always fight for medals, which is where it has to be. There were many people who said that we did not have the level to be there. All of us here disagree with that. On the one hand, it would not be a historic feat (winning a medal), but for another, being so many new people in the team (…), getting a medal would be very good,” he says.
In any case, this psychology student, who the day before the round of 16 match against Lithuania had to request a change in the date of an exam as it coincided with a training session, appeals to resilience as one of the team’s keys.
“We are resilient in those tough moments of the game. It’s a matter of having faith, keep fighting, keep believing, getting one possession after another and, when we reach a tight end, we have that confidence and that knowing how to be that allows us to have advantage over the rest,” he argues.
And, in this sense, he stresses: “What differentiates us from the others and with which we identify a lot as a group is that we believe in ourselves; we don’t care if people say that we have lowered our level or any story that they invent out there. We love to compete and we’re never going to give up.”
In addition to resilience, this Tuesday Spain will have the challenge of stopping Lauri Markkanen, one of the players in the championship, who in the round of 16 thrashed Croatia with 43 points.
In this sense, Brizuela highlights the talent of the Utah Jazz center -“he is a player with scoring capabilities in all sectors”, he analyzes-, but warns that Spain must also “be careful” with the shooters.
And regarding the options of the team coached by Sergio Scariolo, he advances: “Our advantage is going to be inside with Willy (Hernangómez), who don’t have players to stop him.”
He will wait for his moment “to score points” and “be prepared” in case Spain has to play a tight game. “The coach asks me to be intense at the back, at everyone’s level, that is non-negotiable for the twelve. Apart from that, he wants me to generate for the others in attack,” says the player, who averages 8.2 in this European points in 16 minutes.
After preparing for the European Championship in which his presence in the team was not guaranteed, Brizuela now enjoys the championship with Alberto Díaz -his roommate at Unicaja-, as well as Sebas Saiz, with whom he coincided in the lower categories of Estudiantes .
A fact that is not minor for him and that he appreciates because “coexistence is more normal” to face the concentration and connect with them on the parquet, where the ‘Basque mamba’, the nickname by which he is popularly known, is prepared to shine.
Victor Martí
