Yesterday, “VEF Rīga” suffered their fourth loss in five FIBA Champions League games, which was away with 71:84 conceded to Benfica. In another match, “Limoges” beat “Manresa” represented by March Steinberg, and this means that VEF will not continue in the Champions League after the group stage. It will play its last match in two weeks at home against Manresa.
“With very little rotation, we played against a physical team like Benfica,” VEF’s head coach made his first comments after the game Jānis Gailītis. “There was a very difficult atmosphere comparable to football – a lot of pretending, shouting and stopping the game, which doesn’t really help basketball. Our players deserve respect, but at this level it’s impossible to fight with such a small rotation,” continued the specialist.
When asked whether “Benfica” surprised VEF to any extent, Gailītis answered in the negative. “Their games are interesting to watch from the sidelines. A lot of beautiful episodes and a lot of emotions,” says the VEF coach about the opponent’s style of play, who also emphasized the physical superiority of the opponents, which became more and more evident during the game. “They played aggressively, but we got tired. If one team is more physical than the other, then sooner or later the other team will start making wrong decisions in attack.”
In the last two seasons, VEF managed to get out of the group stage of the Champions League. Two seasons ago, VEF played until the “Top16” tournament, but the previous one stopped in the “play-in” phase.
