Does the big dream of the first gold burst again? The large top favorite Serbia shakes at the SEM basketball. The 90: 95 defeat against Turkey clearly showed that Serbia is not as overpowering as before the tournament.
The goal of the Serbs is very clear: there should be the first gold medal at a big tournament. So far, as a independent country, this has never been achieved despite the numerous top basketball players.
And the chances have never seemed as big as before the tournament start. With Nikola Jokic, the best basketball player in the world is currently running at the European Championship for Serbia. In addition, coach Svetislav Pesic can fall back on three other NBA stars. With Vasilije Micic, a player also belongs to the squad who once became Euroleague-MVP and returned from the NBA as the best paid player in Europe.
At the Olympic Games last year, he showed how strong the Serbian squad is. There, the team, who plays with the same line -up at the European Championship, only had to give up the United States, which were at the start with all their stars. This is also why the Serbian squad is considered one of the best in EM history.
Basketball European Championship: Serbia struggles with injury bad luck
Accordingly, the picture was clear before the tournament start: the European Championship title only goes through Serbia. But this clear favorite status has now got the first cracks.
The extreme bad luck is particularly causing major problems. Already in the first European Championship game, Captain Bogdan Bogdanovic injured the most important player behind superstar Jokic and fails for the entire tournament.
The star of the Los Angeles Clippers is one of the best players in the world in Fiba competitions. At the 2024 Olympic Games, he scored an average of 18.3 points. With Tristan Vukcevic, another NBA star was recently missing.
Turkey then jicked. With Aleksa Avramovic, the team’s leader injured himself on the heel. “If you play with so much energy, all players are important. But what causes us the most problems was Avramovic’s heel injury. It is very painful,” said coach Pesic after the game.
Serbia has a scoring problem behind Jokic
With its incredible energy, Avramovic is extremely important both on the defensive and on the offensive. He is also the team’s emotional leader. While Jokic is doing performance, but rather calm, Avramovic regularly piles up the fans and his own team.
If the point Guard is longer, this could tear an even larger hole into the already battered hierarchy in the Serbian team, because behind Jokic (20.2 points on average) there is currently nothing in the scoring.
“Who are the second and third players in Serbia at Eurobasket?” Mozzart Sport Finally suitable. Only two players in the tournament scorten on average (Nikola Jovic 11.4 points and Filip Petrusev 10 points on average) – Serbia currently has a real vacuum behind Jokic.
This is also evident in Jokic’s statistics. The “Joker”, who actually always tries to use his teammates, has only come to four assists per game in the course of the tournament. In the NBA it was an average of 10.2 last season.
Jokic currently realizes that he has to wear his team alone on the offensive. This also shows its unusually high number of throws. He completed a whopping 26 times against Latvia and he also threw out of the field against Turkey 16 times.
Serbia on a hard way: “Dorns and landmines everywhere”
This scoring vacuum has to get Serbia under control as soon as possible if it is to work with the European Championship title. Because the defeat against Turkey is now waiting for the team a much more difficult way.
Already in the round of 16 against Finland, which is always dangerous with NBA star Lauri Markkanen. After that it is only against absolute cracks. In the quarter -finals, France would probably wait, Germany or Greece or Greece again in the semi -finals with the expected course of Germany and in the final.
“Dorns and land mines lurk everywhere,” said Mozzart Sport The path of their own national team: “Instead, the Turks have a highway to the finish line.” After the group victory, Sweden and then Poland or Bosnia and Herzegovina are waiting for them.
Also because of the tricky path, Serbia slipped from first to third to third place in the Fiba power ranking. There are currently Germany and Turkey in front.
This statistics still give Serbia hope
Nevertheless, the national team’s defeat against Turkey is not assessed negatively everywhere in Serbia. For the top -handed sports newspaper Sport Zurnal this is even good. “Serbia escaped the curse with a defeat,” she headed.
Specifically, it is about that in the current mode of the EM (since 2007) only one team was able to win the European Championship title after it had won all five games in the group phase. This feat only succeeded in Slovenia in 2019.
In Serbia, on the other hand, there are bad memories of a flawless group phase. After five wins in five games at the EM 2022, the team then failed in the round of 16.
“If you can believe tradition, we miss the curse,” wrote Sport Zurnal further. With great optimism, the chances of a Serbian EM title are still very good. However, the team is definitely not so superior how many expected.
