Last weekend the U17 European 3×3 Basketball Championship was held and Spain managed to emerge as runner-up in the competition. The quartet formed by Michael Enabulele, Alexandre Huguet, Gerard Villarejo and Eduard Coll, the same as in the pre-European competition, managed to reach the final but lost to Croatia.
The team started the tournament in an ideal way with a full performance in the group stage. They beat Germany 20-9 and even managed to beat Croatia in that first phase by 21-16.
In the quarterfinals came the meeting with an Ireland that imposed great resistance (21-17), but the Spanish team made it to the quarterfinals to face France, one of the favorites for the title. However, they achieved a lopsided 21-8 victory that secured them a place on the podium.
The final was fought until the last moment with a score that could have gone for either of the two teams. The final result (19-21) crowned the Croatians as the new European champions, while Spain had to settle for a silver medal as a result of the effort and dedication of its players.
Eduard Coll did not appear in the team of the tournament, but thanks to this second position his name has climbed to the top 7 in the FIBA ??U18 ranking. It should be noted that Coll is still 17 years old and only one player his age, the Slovenian Enej Geržel, surpasses him in the ranking.
The thing doesn’t end there. At an absolute level, Coll is already in the top 46 in the state within the 3×3 ranking of the Spanish Basketball Federation. One more indication of how this new batch of players are taking 3×3 to another level both inside and outside of Spain.
