2023-08-26 15:51:00
Champion at the 2019 World Cup and reigning European Champion, Spain had a status to enforce for its entry into the running in the 2023 World Cup, once morest Côte d’Ivoire this Saturday. Mission accomplished for La Roja, who won easily despite a sluggish start to the match.
This is something that is relatively common in a first match of a major international competition. The ultra-favorite team struggles a little to enter its tournament, while the “little one” plays without complex and poses some problems for its opponent. This gives a tighter start to the game than expected, before the talent, experience and collective strength of the “big guy” come to make the difference between the two teams quite clearly.
It’s a bit like the scenario we had during the Spain-Ivory Coast match this Saturday.
Admittedly, La Roja scored the first nine points of the match, but for a good part of the first half, the Ivorians were in contact with the reigning world champions. Only 20-17 for Spain following eight minutes of play, 30-26 towards the middle of the second quarter, in short it was far from a cakewalk for the men of Sergio Scariolo. The fault in particular of guys like Bazoumana Koné, Vafessa Fofana, Nisre Zouzoua and Charles Abouo, who were determined to play the blow thoroughly in this opening match. But the fault especially with Spaniards lacking seriousness, with losses of ball in abundance (18 in total). Enough to force Scariolo to push a big mouthful on his bench. And that, often, has its effect.
From the last five minutes of the first half, Spain put on top gear on both sides of the pitch. From +8, the gap suddenly widened until it almost reached 20 points following a 17-6 pass by La Roja to the Ivorians. And 20 points is also the offensive performance of Willy Hernangomez in the first period alone, with a 9/10 in shooting for the MVP of EuroBasket 2022.
Willy Hernangomez owns the first half once morest Ivory Coast ????
20 PTS
9/10 2 PT
3 REB
1 STL
19 EFF#FIBAWC #WinForAll pic.twitter.com/5uGGtYdupy
— BasketNews (@BasketNews_com) August 26, 2023
The following ? It was garbage time for most of the second half. Côte d’Ivoire continued to fight to try to restart the game, but Spain played their basketball with this collective power that characterizes it. Applied, solid, aggressive, and very dominant in the rebound over the whole match (+22), La Roja mastered his subject to finally stick 30 points to his opponent of the day (94-64).
No doubt, we will still have to count on Spain in this World Cup. As always in fact.
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#easy #Spain #Ivory #Coast
