Spain won the second title in its history in the Basketball World Cup after clearly defeating Argentina in the final (95-75) in Beijing, after having controlled the scoreboard from the start of the match.
Asia brings good luck to the ‘ÑBA’. The first world basketball title for Spain was given in Japan in 2006 and now it is crowned in China, after an impeccable tournament, in which it won all eight games played.
In this Sunday’s final, he distanced himself 12-2 in the first minutes and from then on he maintained a wide advantage at all times.
At halftime he came away with a 43-31 advantage and during the third quarter he distanced himself to a margin of 22 points. In the fourth, the Argentines lowered the disadvantage to 12 points, but could not lower the psychological barrier of ten, with Spain that stifled any attempt to react by the South American team.
The Wukesong Pavilion in the Chinese capital brought back memories to the Spanish team, as it was there that they stood up for a long time to the United States of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James during the final of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games (118-107) .
Ricky Rubio was 17 years old at that Beijing 2008 Olympic final and was already part of the squad.
In this World Cup, he was chosen the most valuable player (MVP) of the tournament, after also being the top Spanish scorer in the final, ahead of Sergio Llull (15 points).
In Argentina, the 24 points scored by Gabriel Deck, the match’s top scorer, were insufficient for his team to fight for gold.
Pau Gasol (39 years old), the great Spanish star of recent years, was the main absence of his team for this appointment after a foot problem, but the most recognizable link between the crowns of Japan-2006 and China-2019 is precisely his brother Marc (34 years old), a member of both teams, an honor that another emblematic player, Rudy Fernández (34 years old), can also boast of.
Marc Gasol is experiencing a particularly unforgettable 2019, after also being crowned NBA champion with the Toronto Raptors.
Spain had suffered disappointments in the last two World Cups, losing in the quarterfinals to Serbia in 2010 and to France in 2014, in the latter case suffering a particularly painful defeat, since the tournament was played in their country.
– End of the reign of the USA –
The 2015 Eurobasket, with a gold, and the Rio-2016 Olympic Games, with a bronze, allowed the Spaniards to once again savor the great international podiums, as a harbinger of what was going to happen in this World-wide-2019.
Spain now succeeds the United States in the World Cup record, a team that had also won gold in the last three Olympic Games.
The ‘Team USA’, who traveled to China with important absences, remained in the quarterfinals after losing to France, which was later overtaken by Argentina in the semifinals.
The Argentines, world champions in the first edition of the tournament, which they hosted in 1950, were playing their second world final in the modern era of basketball. In 2002 they were also left with honey on their lips, when they fell in the last game against Yugoslavia (84-77).
In that team 17 years ago was Luis Scola, who at 39 is one of the figures of the current Albiceleste squad. He could not reissue on this occasion the celebration he already lived with his colleagues from the ‘Golden Generation’ by taking the title at the 2004 Athens Games.
Scola was left with just 8 points in the final. A symbol that things did not work out for Argentina as expected. AFP