WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP JAPAN 2006
Argentina, Spain, Greece and the USA demonstrated from the very first day that the title was a fight between the four, despite the fact that some of their rivals had been attacking them before the tournament had even begun.“ Spain has a ball reserved only for Gasol and Navarro. They make all the plays”, said Dirk Nowitzki, who once again carried all Germany ' s hopes on his shoulders. They are him and four others, said the critics, and still do. Another aspirant for the title, France, suffered a severe blow just before the competition began. Tony Parker, their star player was left out of the list of twelve given by Claude Bergeaud as he had not recovered from a broken finger suffered in a friendly match against Brazil four days previously.
Argentina, Spain, Greece and the USA had everything their own way during the group stage, all finishing their five matches unbeaten.
For many the opening day, 19 August was enough to put things in their place. Japan had the misfortune to start against Germany, probably one of the worst rivals posible in Group B. Without doubt the other was Spain, based on the fantastic“ Golden Boys”, Junior World Champions in Lisbon 1999, who had made their desire to make history clear in the international tournaments prior to Japan. The hosts lost their first match by 81-70, a result that allowed them to keep their pride, a close result that gave them enough hope to battle for a place in the next round. The German wall, with three seven-footers( Nowitzki, Femerling and Jagla) was insurmountable. The twenty points scored by Nowitzki in the first quarter alone was the best possible presentation of the German team who came to Hiroshima with the bronze medal from the Indianapolis 2002 World Championship around their necks.
ONE SURPRISE AND FOUR UNBEATEN
The first day would provide the first surprise of the tournament, the defeat of Serbia and Montenegro, the team defending the gold medal from 2002, by Nigeria( 75-82). Japan, a country used to earthquakes, saw the first of the tournament, in Sendai. Not even the elimination of Ime Udoka( their best player on the day with 18 points) for personal fouls stopped them from winning.“ We played hard, but a lot of our players lacked the experience for a game like this”, claimed Igor Rakocevic. The defeat of Serbia and Montenegro was front page news, a huge surprise. It was the tournament ' s way of saying“ Beware, danger ahead”, the forerunner of future surprises which would mark a historic change in world basketball. As was to be expected all the attention was centred on the USA. On this occasion not only their stars shone, like the Beatles the team never stopped signing autographs for the young Japanese girls, but they also had the responsibility of winning back their lost pride. The USA crossed the first hurdle by beating their neighbours Puerto Rico by 111-100.
USA Basketball had recalled part of their firepower to avoid a further affront like that suffered four years before when they had to be satisfied with sixth place despite organising the competition on home soil in Indianapolis. The mastermind behind the team was the managing director, Jerry Colangelo, and the coach was Mike Krzyzewski, the soul of Duke, a meticulous man with strong reasons to believe he could recover the title. What many considered to to be a magic triangle had its three vertices in Dwayne Wade, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, the latest generation of NBA basketball, the players called to set a new era. Three days before the competition started they were chosen as team captains, and Gilbert Arenas and Bruce Bowen were the final two discards. The US press dubbed the team“ Redeem Team”, the team that was supposed the return American basketball to its rightful place. They took the first step towards this goal in the match against Puerto Rico..
252 FUNDACIÓN PEDRO FERRÁNDIZ