By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
The Italian coach of Latvia Luca Banchi was not happy with the officiating during the loss against Canada in the FIBA World Cup.
Latvia finished the group stage in second place with a 2-1 record.
“First and foremost, I want to congratulate our opponents, who played a fantastic game. The statistics tell the whole story, their impressive performance, shooting, and their potential. I am proud of how we played, and how we approached the game impressively, with focus and energy. During the game, it was tough to match them physically, in terms of talent… We lacked energy; we were playing against a team that has a lot of it,” said Luca Banchi.
He continued in the same tone: “Against teams like them, a lot of energy is expended, as you need to match their intensity. We provided emotions to our fans and showed that we were ready to compete. I believe that at the end of the day, our national team deserved the applause of our supporters.“
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However the Italian coach stated that FIBA rules don’t seem to apply equally to everyone.
“Technical fouls are part of the game, my feeling was that the criteria for calling fouls weren’t consistent from the beginning. You come to play against Canada, and there are three referees from Americas… that doesn’t sound fair. Don’t look at their last names, we’re not talking about salaries, popularity, age… treat them the same. If we’re talking about the criteria for technical fouls, the opposing coach deserved a few. I think FIBA rules apply to some and not to others. We accepted their strength, the game was played at a high level. We played a good match. My belt snapped at one point, but I always have a Plan B. It’s nice to see how these guys play with their character, except for the beginning of the third quarter (after a timeout, we returned one possession behind). I want us to play at a high level, I know it’s difficult in terms of energy, but that’s what I want. I hope we’ll have time to reset and prepare for the next round; we want to compete at that level. Our next two games are against Spain and Brazil“.
Photo Credit: FIBA.BASKETBALL