The Olympic vice champion from Beijing 2008 and London 2012, Spain began their preparations for the Olympic games Rio 2016. La Furia Roja started with a glorious victory against Angola. The final result was smashing – 85:61 and that was the first friendly match for Spain before the most important international basketball tournament. The match was played at Coliseum in Burgos.
La Furia Roja played against the African team without four of their best players – the brothers Pau and Marc Gasol, Sergio Llull and Sergio Rodriguez. In their absence, Nikola Mirotic and Alex Abrines took the responsibility. They were the most effective players on the pitch, finishing with 19 and 16 points. The veteran baller Felipe Reyes also played well and scored 13 points in just over 14 minutes of playing time.
Joaquim Valdelicio and Santos Hermenegildo bagged 11 points for Angola, while the team leader Carlos Mora could score only 3 points. He was awful, scoring only one of his 9 attempts.
Angola failed to qualify for the Olympic basketball tournament as they were knocked out of the group stage qualification in Belgrade.
On the other hand, Spain managed to qualify for the Olympic games in Rio, after finishing in second position of Group B, in which were also the teams of Argentina, Brazil, Lithuania, Croatia and Nigeria.
It will be very interesting whether Spain will finally reach the golden medals. As you know, the Spaniards have lost the final on 3 occasions (in 1984, 2008 and 2012). La Furia Roja lost all these finals to the USA. But the US team, which is the biggest favourite for retaining the title, is without a very big number of superstars.
In conclusion, we have to say that it won’t be something extraordinary if we see Spain against the USA in the final. But this time Spain seem to have stronger team and it won’t be a surprise if La Furia Roja finally lift the trophy!