As the FIBA U22 Championship reached its final stage, all of the teams moved from Maribor and Postojna towards Slovenian capital Ljubljana. Everyone understood the importance of the last two games - though some teams were playing for their pride and 5-8th places, the pressure was especially true for the teams who were in the top four. Italy - Greece was a first semi final to be played, and Belarus was facing the #1 team from group B - Spain in the later game.
Psychologically, no matter how hard players try not to think about the importance of the crucial games, it is usually a tough task to manage as all of their thoughts are related to the game in one way or another. The signs are everywhere: players are carefully choosing what to eat for breakfast and, all of a sudden, teammates stop to joke as much, and one can hear the annoying sound of silverware hitting the plates' ceramic during a team lunch. There is also silence in a video room while the team is watching scouting video and the intensity is mixed in the air with occasional remarks from coaches... Everyone realizes that an opportunity to win European Championship might never present itself again.
One would think that Belarus team could have been satisfied with Top-4 status already, however, it was not the case. We were trying to reach for the stars as we were about to play Spain - a team full of well established players who were representing top ACB Spanish League teams. As history showed, we were about to play the worst 20 minutes of basketball during that Championship which resulted in 20-points gap that separated us from the Final. As Spanish players demonstrated quality basketball, nothing was going right for us as we underperformed under pressure. It was a truly humiliating feeling - that short walk from the game court to a team locker-room seemed like an eternity to me and it seemed that Belarus team logo, embodied in my jersey, was burning into my heart as all of us were shocked by first-half outcome.
As our locker-room was full of silence, players' heads were down and coach was searching for the right words to say, we heard the voices of Spanish players loudly singing the victory songs - their premature celebration was unfolding full speed. That was exactly the kind of motivation that our team needed - coach had to say nothing besides "make them respect you no matter what!" as we stormed out back to the court. We changed our game plan a bit and played zone defense for all 20 minutes as we started to decrease a margin by every minute. The Spaniards could not get their heads in the game and we tight the score at 67-67 with a minute left. Ruslan Boidakov - our team captain and future Championship MVP - took it upon himself and we won the semi final thanks to his two free throws.
Back in the hotel, the Spaniards captain approached our team table during the dinner, and congratulated us with a great victory as his eyes were full of tears and mixed emotions. To this day, I think it was a truly admirable gesture as it takes lots of guts to admit your own personal defeat.
That semi final victory opened up an air vent and all the pressure was gone from our team: we realized that nothing will stop us on the way to the Gold medals as we were facing Italy that easily defeated Greece by twenty points.
Not many fans were attending the Final, but the organizing committee set up a nice red-carpet section for about 20 Italian and FIBA officials who anticipated another Italian triumph - Italians were reigning U22 Champions in 1992.
During the Final, we played happy and free lanced basketball - though Italians were always somewhere behind by 6 points - we were confident in our game and showed a true team effort by playing a champion caliber basketball and defeating Italy by five points 96-91.
What an amazing feeling when long hours of practices, games, travel, hustle and pressure can translate into one Championship team embrace... As Belarus banner was being raised, we proudly stood listening to Belarus national anthem with the gold medals around the necks and, each of us had probably went through a million of things that had to happen in order for that moment to become a reality...
Psychologically, no matter how hard players try not to think about the importance of the crucial games, it is usually a tough task to manage as all of their thoughts are related to the game in one way or another. The signs are everywhere: players are carefully choosing what to eat for breakfast and, all of a sudden, teammates stop to joke as much, and one can hear the annoying sound of silverware hitting the plates' ceramic during a team lunch. There is also silence in a video room while the team is watching scouting video and the intensity is mixed in the air with occasional remarks from coaches... Everyone realizes that an opportunity to win European Championship might never present itself again.
One would think that Belarus team could have been satisfied with Top-4 status already, however, it was not the case. We were trying to reach for the stars as we were about to play Spain - a team full of well established players who were representing top ACB Spanish League teams. As history showed, we were about to play the worst 20 minutes of basketball during that Championship which resulted in 20-points gap that separated us from the Final. As Spanish players demonstrated quality basketball, nothing was going right for us as we underperformed under pressure. It was a truly humiliating feeling - that short walk from the game court to a team locker-room seemed like an eternity to me and it seemed that Belarus team logo, embodied in my jersey, was burning into my heart as all of us were shocked by first-half outcome.
As our locker-room was full of silence, players' heads were down and coach was searching for the right words to say, we heard the voices of Spanish players loudly singing the victory songs - their premature celebration was unfolding full speed. That was exactly the kind of motivation that our team needed - coach had to say nothing besides "make them respect you no matter what!" as we stormed out back to the court. We changed our game plan a bit and played zone defense for all 20 minutes as we started to decrease a margin by every minute. The Spaniards could not get their heads in the game and we tight the score at 67-67 with a minute left. Ruslan Boidakov - our team captain and future Championship MVP - took it upon himself and we won the semi final thanks to his two free throws.
Back in the hotel, the Spaniards captain approached our team table during the dinner, and congratulated us with a great victory as his eyes were full of tears and mixed emotions. To this day, I think it was a truly admirable gesture as it takes lots of guts to admit your own personal defeat.
That semi final victory opened up an air vent and all the pressure was gone from our team: we realized that nothing will stop us on the way to the Gold medals as we were facing Italy that easily defeated Greece by twenty points.
Not many fans were attending the Final, but the organizing committee set up a nice red-carpet section for about 20 Italian and FIBA officials who anticipated another Italian triumph - Italians were reigning U22 Champions in 1992.
During the Final, we played happy and free lanced basketball - though Italians were always somewhere behind by 6 points - we were confident in our game and showed a true team effort by playing a champion caliber basketball and defeating Italy by five points 96-91.
What an amazing feeling when long hours of practices, games, travel, hustle and pressure can translate into one Championship team embrace... As Belarus banner was being raised, we proudly stood listening to Belarus national anthem with the gold medals around the necks and, each of us had probably went through a million of things that had to happen in order for that moment to become a reality...
P.S. Life presented us with a wonderful accomplishment of being U22 European Champion, but the fact I am the most proud about this team is that that team consisted of championship character human beings, which is even more important in life...
No comments:
Post a Comment