The Spain under-19 team was proclaimed this Sunday in Debrecen (Hungary) world champion for the second time in its history after defeating 73-69 in an exciting final that had to be decided after extra time, Francewho was left without his first title and reissued the silver achieved in 2021.
Twenty-four years after the triumph, in Lisbon in 1999, of those baptized as gold juniors -among which were players of the stature of Pau Gasol, Raül López, Juan Carlos Navarro or Felipe Reyes- the Spanish team once again touched glory by successfully completing a tournament in which they have finished undefeated and in which they have surpassed with authority to all his rivals, leaving all the suffering for the final.
Why France dominated the scoreboard for most of the matchknew how to tie up the emerging figures of Spanish basketball and stood up to the end with a colossus Zacharie Perrin, who kept his team for many minutes and finished with MVP figures: fourteen points, twenty rebounds and 31 valuation credits.
With four consecutive points from Be Almansa The Spanish team seemed to start better, although the Frenchmen responded quickly with a 0-5 draw that put them ahead on the scoreboard for the first time. Defenses quickly adjusted on both sides, which led to baskets coming slowly.
Jordi Rodríguez took over the scoring to keep the clash even against an opponent who, driven by their valuable victory the day before against the United States, did not give up and was solid on both sides of the track, with Melvin Ajinca as the stiletto and Zacharie Perrin dominating the rebounds, with fourteen sacks in the first half, only two fewer than the entire Spanish team.
Without a clear dominator, the first quarter ended with a tight 19-18 and with the errors in the free kick as a mole in the team led by Dani Miret, where only three players saw a ring in those first ten minutes, Rodriguez (10), Almansa (6) and Rafa Villar (3).
France managed to bother each attack of a team that reached the final as the only unbeaten player in a tournament in which they had beaten all their rivals with complete authority. On this occasion, the defense raised by Lamine Kebe was choking him and he also suffered to contain his offensive rush.
Without fluency in attack or dominance in rebounding, Spain found themselves down four halfway through the second period, so they had to use a defensive attitude to avoid greater evils, which allowed him to go into the break with just one point behind (28-29) lAstralized by his bad percentages in shots from two (28%) and his bad first half from the staff line, where he missed nine shots.
At the restart, it took Spain three minutes to regain control of a duel that was still without an owner, but the joy did not last long. France continued to dominate under hoops and stopping a team that missed the contribution of Izan Almansa and Jordi Rodríguez, their best men in the tournament, which at least compensated with their defensive attitude.
This attitude allowed steals behind that minimized some errors from the perimeter and the personnel line. Spain continued without carbureting at the level that in the previous matchess but at least he remained within range with ten minutes to go (41-43, min 30).
A distant triple from Rodríguez put his team ahead again but each hit was answered immediately by the French team, who put one more gear into their game to achieve their maximum advantage of the afternoon six minutes from the end of regulation time, which set off the alarms on the Spanish bench (46-53).
Dani Miret’s players got up again, with a 6-0 that kept him alive, until three triples with the signatures of Alexandre Bouzidi, Alexandre Dam and Melvine Ajinca were a jug of cold water for their interests.
Miller throws the team behind him
Miller then threw the team behind him and a couple of hits from him and a long shot from Jordi Rodríguez 18 seconds from the end of the last quarter brought the game to the prorogation (63-63, min 40).
Rafa Villar opened the extra time with five points that were answered immediately by a successful Ajinca who was doing a lot of damage from all positions but Spain knew how to maintain its good defensive tone and managed to finish off the second world title in its history24 years after the success of some golden juniors that marked an entire generation then and today found worthy successors.
Datasheet:
73 – Spain (19+9+13+22+10): Almansa (14), Miller (11), Garuba (5), Rodríguez (18) and Villar (17) -starting five-,(), Gómez (-), Moreno (-), Nogués (6), Onuetu (- ), De Larrea (2) and Langarita (-).
69 – France (18+11+14+20+6): Ajinca (21), Risacher (-), Dam Sarr (8), Bouzidi (9) and Perrin (14) – the starting quintet – Fischer (7), Le Meut (-), Parmentelot (4), Dzellat-Diakeno (4) -) and Penda (6).
Referees: Daniel Garcia (VEN), Jenna Jordan Reneau (USA) and Gvidas Gedvilas (LTU). Perrin and Miller were fouled out.
Incidences: Final of the U19 Basketball World Cup played at the Fönix Arena in Debrecen (Hungary).
2023-07-02 20:23:52
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