Coach Messina surprised by question about “ridiculous game by Israel”

2017-08-31T22:55:34+00:00 2017-09-13T21:42:04+00:00.

Aris Barkas

31/Aug/17 22:55

Eurohoops.net

Italy spoiled the party of Israel in Tel Aviv, beating the hosts of Group B at the start of the tournament. However, coach Ettore Messina had to defend his opponents in the press conference.

By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net

The home crowd and Israeli journalists expected something better and the first questions addressed to Messina – by an Israeli journalist – was if he expected “such a ridiculous game by Israel”, which was declared as the favorite of the game by the local press.

Messina was taken by surprise and he gave the following answer: “If you put the word ridiculous in the question, it is difficult for me to answer. I don’t want to be disrespectful to anybody. I have been on the losing side so many times and I have been called an idiot so many times that I… I had my share of losses and embarrassment. If you want to call this game that way, I cannot agree with you. They fought, they tried and they lost. That’s it. I agree that they were the favorite in this game. We have a lost a lot of preparation games and they had moments when they scored 90 points easily. And they were beating teams. They have everything. I respect them. They just had a bad night. It happens”.

(Photo credit: FIBA.basketball)

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