Every sporting event, every major sporting event has something to teach us. So from the Basketball World Cup held in China, we have a lot to gain in various areas such as the spectacle, the various tactics followed, the psychological preparation, and management of various situations. We will focus on the latter area.
A rule that has been confirmed once again: basketball is a team sport and in the end, the team that has high-quality athletes but also meets a necessary condition wins: that the athletes have worked with each other and with the coach so that they have close and direct relationships that will lead to better cohesion and overlap within the team. This is the element that led Spain to the conquest of the world championship, a team that is very focused on creating the most stable body of athletes in the long run, a strategic choice that has led it, no matter how much it has hurt us as Greeks in past, in four gold and eleven medals in total in Eurobasket, Mudbasket and Olympic Games in the last thirteen years. Achieving high chemistry, in the long run, facilitates the automation that “flush” in the adverse points of a match, alleviates the anxiety and fear of failure, and favors the smooth overcoming of conflicts that fatally arise in the turbulent course of each team in a tournament.
The Argentine team deserves a special mention with the above. A team that also has a brilliant history in the last fifteen years. After the departure of many great athletes who made up the team for years (Ginobili, Prigioni, Delfino, Nocioni) due to the relentless time, many did not expect the Argentina of 2019 to reach the top. And yet. An emblematic athlete, the 39-year-old die-hard Louis Scola brought to this tournament the aura of the glamor of the past, in which he was an integral member, directly to the imagination of his teammates and together with the also special Facundo Campazzo nurtured the team with a spirit of self-denial. and combativeness. But was that enough on its own to beat the high-quality matches Serbia and France and reach second place in the tournament? No. It also required teamwork and human relationships of honesty and closeness built with simple daily gestures of altruism, such as group, synchronized, rhythmic, and prolonged applause after each workout.
The next team we will focus on is Australia. A team with quality athletes, who, although before the event was not considered by many as a medal contender, fought to the end and took the most honorable fourth place. This success is attributed, in addition to the undoubted talent of its athletes, to the remarkable national system of holistic development of athletes Center of Excellence. Founded in 1981 to man the country’s future national teams, this program incorporates basketball athletes from an early age and supports them with a complete network of physical education, nutrition, physiotherapy, and psychology scientists. As the officials of the Center of Excellence declare, the main goal is more the progress and prosperity of the athletes in all aspects of his life inside and outside the basketball court than the success in the results of matches. And the victories came with the crew of the year, with the Australian men’s national basketball team figuring in fourth place in the world and being regarded as a strong opponent by all.
And we end up with our national team. We had on our roster the best basketball player of the regular season of the best league in the world, Giannis Antitokoumbo, and some of the best European basketball players. Our final ranking in 11th place is lower than our expectations, but it certainly has a lot to teach us. First and foremost, as we mentioned at the beginning, it is not the team with the best or the best technical athletes that wins, but the team with the best preparation and cohesion. And while there are mostly positive comments about the coherence of this group, we can not say the same about the levels of preparation, which includes spiritual preparation. But instead of focusing on the final result, as mentioned by Thodoris Papaloukas, it will be more beneficial for us to draw the positives from our presence in this Mud Basketball, like the example given by Panagiotis all these years with his patience and perseverance. Vasilopoulos, intellectual supplies which led him to the restoration of his career and his justification.
So how are we doing in the future? We keep the positives of the high motivation, good cohesion, and perseverance shown by our national team, but at the same time, we try to synchronize with the data of the time. Basketball now, as well as the whole sport, moves in a fully scientific context. Any athlete and team that wants to stand out are invited to work with experts in every field, whether it is called technical shooting, regular, or physical condition, diet, rehabilitation, or psychology. Even if one does not want to be distinguished, one has every right to enjoy playing basketball and every sport. And again, this would mean that you have to spend on these processes. Let us study the example of Australia, Spain, and other countries and let us adapt it to our Greek reality. And if we do not achieve firsts and medals, which are welcome, we will have succeeded in bringing more children to basketball and sports, who will not leave gloomily but will continue to play sports and fight drawing joy and multiple life lessons.
Vasilis Xernos
Psychologist-Sports Psychologist-Psychotherapist