European basketball championships, Spain: beat France in the final

Infinite Spain. The masterpiece of the Red Furies is worth the fourth European title in the last 6 editions, confirming the excellence of a school that seems inexhaustible.

Spain-France 88-76

—

France must bow before the soul and organization of a team in which they are not protagonists and extras. Everyone is advancing in the more than ten-year-old path traced by Sergio Scariolo, the Italian coach who is now a legend. Fourth continental title for Don Sergio who now takes off Ivkovic at an altitude of three and joins Stepan Spandarjan, Soviet guru of the first post-war period. In front of everyone remains Colonel Gomelskij with his 6 USSR titles, but in the modern era Sergio Scariolo is the man capable of writing history. The coach from Brescia conquers perhaps the most beautiful gold, absolutely unexpected, because he is the son of a once again winning generational revolution. Lost in time Navarro, the Gasol brothers, Chacho Rodriguez for having reached age limits, also crippled by the injuries of Rubio and Llull, Scariolo was able to reconstruct a winning creature, centered on the naturalized Lorenzo Brown, who made the traditionalists turn up their mouths, two other brothers at NBA altitude like the Hernangomez and a handful of young people and second-tier European profiles, however capable of exalting themselves in theoretically impossible challenges. Willy Hernangomez is the mvp of the European Championship, but the hero of the final is his brother Jancho who closes with 27 points and 7/9 from three and it is from the arc, with that initial 8/11, that the Spaniards dig the winning gap. Spain closes the first quarter on 23-14, considering that the other three swarm away in balance, it is there that the Scariolo-band seals the success. Which, on +21, seems already in his pocket, but then comes the reaction of the French able to mend up to -6 (57-63), but more nerves than intellect, so much so that the match never seems to slip away from the hands of the Spaniards. Lorenzo Brown, the hero of the semifinal with Germany, and lucid strategist in the final act, also placed a good brick, embellished with a double double (14 points and 11 assists). And so the fiesta can begin, with the tears of 37-year-old Rudy Fernandez, the link between past and present, also like Scariolo in the fourth European title. The kingdom of Spain seems to never end.