It looked like Spain were prolonging their Eurobasket debut nightmare, with a defeat reminiscent of the disappointments of the last two tournaments, but it was only a step backwards to gain momentum. The Spanish recovered from the blow against Latvia and swept Germany in the quarter-finals yesterday, a victory that secures a place for the Paris 2024 pre-Olympics in February. The team forgot the poor performance at the Tokyo Games and at the previous European, where they finished seventh, and looked more like other golden generations that have collected medals, including four gold in Europe. Miguel Méndez’s players, who made their debut with the national team in a big event, will be able to fight for the medal tomorrow against Hungary in the Spanish team’s eleventh European semifinal.
Tel-Aviv (Israel) witnessed the start of the tournament by a Spain still with doubts and with mechanisms that it had to assemble, while the spectators in Ljubljana (Slovenia), the other seat of the championship, saw a seamless selection, perfect in defense and dynamic in attack.
The Spaniards signed an initial 6-0 run that, instead of diminishing, it widened hopelessly against a tight-knit and erratic opponent. The Germans did not score in the first three minutes and watched helplessly as Queralt Casas, Maite Cazorla and Laura Gil opened the gap at the end of the first quarter (20-7). Germany stopped the bleeding in a second quarter where they continued without finding their two stars, Leonie Fiebich (5) and Marie Gülich (6), completely suffocated by a Spanish defense that mainly short-circuited the rival team’s lows with a lot of pressure that led to a lot of losses.
In the previous matches, against Greece and Montenegro, Spain had a scare after the break, but this time it short-circuited the reaction of Lisa Thomaidis, who called for more intensity. An impossible one for a team with melted batteries after the effort of eighths against Slovakia.
Laura Gil and Marta Cazorla inside and Alba Torrens with a three-pointer fired the advantage (49-20). Far from saving strength, Spain left Germany out of the fight in the last quarter. A three-pointer by Laura Quevedo and another basket by Laura Gil put the maximum advantage (60-29). When there were only two minutes left, after a stoppage time, Spain slowed down and is one step away from making history again. The penultimate obstacle will be Hungary, a priori an inferior rival even though they already beat the Spanish before the Eurobasket. The other ticket to the final will be played by France and Belgium, executioner of the current champion, Serbia.
