favourites to win euro2009

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favourites to win euro2009; who will lift the trophy?
Topic Started: Sep 10 2009, 02:31 PM (543 Views)
misterbongo	Sep 10 2009, 02:31 PM Post #1
Rookie Posts: 96 Group: Member Member #4,134 Joined: September 30, 2007	This is the one of the few euros that i ve seen since 1987 that so many teams have got a realistic chance to win it Before the tournament i thought the spanish would be the crystal clear favourites... But they didnt prove that on court at the moment my favourites are Turkey Serbia Spain Greece Lithuania France I think all those teams have almost an equal chance to win it... Untill now i have really been impressed with my country Greece . Despite all those changes and without the super duper Papaloukas and Diamantidis they managed to produce some excellent basketball What are your favourites and why ? Edited by misterbongo, Sep 10 2009, 02:31 PM.
	EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS 1987, 2005 , beaten the NBA guys to reach WORLD CUP FINAL... HELLAS 4VER


Vilius	Sep 10 2009, 08:58 PM Post #2
Sixth Man Posts: 338 Group: Member Member #2,520 Joined: July 13, 2007	Greece, France and Spain. Those have the biggest chances in my opinion. Greece has been showing a great form and they will only improve in my opinion. France lack shooters but they still manage to control the game and that could lead them to a high place. Spain had a hard start but it seems like they are getting better and coming closer to their real level. Turkey did win all three games but they will probably be knocked out in the quarter-finals. While Serbia is talented but I still think that if they face one of the three favourites mentioned before they will end up on the losing side. And about Lithuania. I have so much to say but it won't interesting for anyone to read. We play horribly and we have the worst coach in Eurobasket. A total idiot. We won't even reach the quarter-finals unless we win 2 or 3 games. With the way we play now we can be beaten by any team.
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Angel of the North	Sep 10 2009, 09:19 PM Post #3
All-Star Posts: 1,100 Group: Member Member #6,976 Joined: March 4, 2008	Vilius Sep 10 2009, 08:58 PM And about Lithuania. I have so much to say but it won't interesting for anyone to read. We play horribly and we have the worst coach in Eurobasket. A total idiot. We won't even reach the quarter-finals unless we win 2 or 3 games. With the way we play now we can be beaten by any team. I knew they should have been in our group! Greece, France or Turkey. Spain lacked lustre so unless they can sort out the problems, think they may miss out.
	A bit rusty and knackered but still impressive for her age!


misterbongo	Sep 12 2009, 05:08 PM Post #4
Rookie Posts: 96 Group: Member Member #4,134 Joined: September 30, 2007	Turkey looked really really strong today ! It seems they have one of their strongest teams ever and the experience and leadership of turkoglu gives a different quality We didnt play that well with the germans but we have the quality and the will to get results. I am beggining to really like this eurobasket!
	EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS 1987, 2005 , beaten the NBA guys to reach WORLD CUP FINAL... HELLAS 4VER


ShuScot	Sep 13 2009, 12:10 AM Post #5
Rookie Posts: 10 Group: Member Member #9,737 Joined: August 15, 2008	Having just got back from today's games in Lodz and had a conversation about this in the bar at our hotel with 3 other GB fans We rather fancy: Slovenia - Have played well in all 4 games so far. France - Havn't see yet but results good Greece - as France As far as Spain are concerned havnt seen them play a good, consistant game so far so unless they get there act together they may even go out at this stage. Finally sorry Vilius but Lithuania get a miracle they are out already. Tonight they lacked offence all night and defence in the 2 half as well. Havn't looked at the shooting stats yet but they must have been as GB's were against Slovenia (46% 2pts if you don't know)



Vilius	Sep 13 2009, 03:31 PM Post #6
Sixth Man Posts: 338 Group: Member Member #2,520 Joined: July 13, 2007	ShuScot Sep 13 2009, 12:10 AM Having just got back from today's games in Lodz and had a conversation about this in the bar at our hotel with 3 other GB fans We rather fancy: Slovenia - Have played well in all 4 games so far. France - Havn't see yet but results good Greece - as France As far as Spain are concerned havnt seen them play a good, consistant game so far so unless they get there act together they may even go out at this stage. Finally sorry Vilius but Lithuania get a miracle they are out already. Tonight they lacked offence all night and defence in the 2 half as well. Havn't looked at the shooting stats yet but they must have been as GB's were against Slovenia (46% 2pts if you don't know) After the first games in the second round this list seems to be the most accurate. Turkey beat Spain but beating Spain these days doesn't mean much as they are playing below their level as does Lithuania. Our coach killed the team in three years and this is the bottom. It's a long story and I already wrote about that in another forum so I won't repeat myself here. I can only say that the coach made mistakes in every aspect of the game. Starting with team selection, game style and ending with substitutions during the games. But the worst thing is that he didn't accept any of his mistakes until last night after we played another horrible game, this time against Slovenia. And by saying that he doesn't accept his mistakes I mean that he not only does not admit that to the media but he makes no changes on the court. The team played probably at 50-60% of its real potential. This Eurobasket was a nightmare for Lithuania so I am not worried about it anymore but what concerns me is he future. And more particularly the coach. I could bet that Butautas will be replaced by Kurtinaitis. He is his assistant at the moment and even though he is better than Butautas but his style is the same. It doesn't fit our team! While thinking about the future a parallel of Serbia comes to my mind. They were easily 2nd or 3rd best team in the world. But they started going downhill since 2003 Eurobasket which was before they hosted Eurobasket 2005 (we will host Eurobasket 2011). They were eliminated by Lithuania in the quarter-finals. Then they had a disappointing 2004 Olympics, were knocked in quarter-finals in Eurobasket 2005 which they played at home hoping of taking gold. They best players left the team. 2006 World Championships - another fiasco as it was Eurobasket 2007. And now this team is happy just to reach the second round and many of their stars are not playing. I hope that we won't repeat this path and that it's another rule - we have a very bad in year every 8 years (Eurobasket 1993 - we didn't even qualify, Eurobasket 2001 - 12th place). But until the whole basketball federation is replaced with new people there won't be any changes. And we could have had Jonas Kazlauskas as our head coach this year already... Sorry going off-topic but there's so much I have to say about Lithuania these days
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GlennHardaker	Sep 18 2009, 11:40 AM Post #7
Basketball Legend Posts: 9,512 Group: Global Moderator Member #1,234 Joined: December 23, 2006	If Spain and Slovenia meet in the Final I hope it's as good as the game I watched in Warsaw Slovenia are my dark horses but I still think Spain will win the title Rivalry city tonight with Slovenia-Croatia and Greece-Turkey matchups
	Feel the (Huddersfield)Heat !


misterbongo	Sep 19 2009, 03:10 PM Post #8
Rookie Posts: 96 Group: Member Member #4,134 Joined: September 30, 2007	fingers crossed for greece today ! maybe its our time this time after the losses of world cup final in japan and euro semis 2 years ago! No matter what the outcome is well done to us because we came to this euro without the legends papaloukas-diamantidis and 8 !!!! players without eurobasket experience not bad at all! In case we win i d prefer slovenia in the final becuse serbians are looking relly strong!
	EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS 1987, 2005 , beaten the NBA guys to reach WORLD CUP FINAL... HELLAS 4VER


Angel of the North	Sep 19 2009, 07:30 PM Post #9
All-Star Posts: 1,100 Group: Member Member #6,976 Joined: March 4, 2008	As soon as any of us question Spain`s ability to get through, they prove us all wrong and go on to beat Greece. Guess Mr Bongos is crying into his ouzo! Don`t it makes it cloudy.
	A bit rusty and knackered but still impressive for her age!


GlennHardaker	Sep 20 2009, 10:19 AM Post #10
Basketball Legend Posts: 9,512 Group: Global Moderator Member #1,234 Joined: December 23, 2006	Serbia out lasted Slovenia in a game that was very physical with the teams going to the line 88 times between them Spain had a dreadful shooting game when Serbia beat them in Group C- surely history can't repeat itself?
	Feel the (Huddersfield)Heat !


Vilius	Sep 20 2009, 12:33 PM Post #11
Sixth Man Posts: 338 Group: Member Member #2,520 Joined: July 13, 2007	The second semi-final between Serbia and Slovenia was simply amazing. Teodosic warmed the bench at Olympiacos but he stepped up last night and was a hero. However, both semi-finals (especially the first one) showed how unfair the schedule is. Lithuania suffered because of such system in 2007 when we lost semi-final against Russia. We had just around 20 hours of rest before the semi-final while Russia had the almost two days. And that was after we won all our games on the way to the semi-final. Why can't quarter-finals be played on the same day? It makes no sense to play them on different days when the games are played in two cities. As a result two semi-finalists have one day of rest while the other two have to play 3 games in 3 days. Greek players were clearly tired after a quarter-final against Turkey which needed an overtime. Jasikevicius complained about the system in 2007 but nobody listens to our complaints so maybe Greece with very strong position in FIBA could push some changes. Hopefully Serbia can challenge Spain tonight and leave them without gold for the 7th time :P
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Sam_H	Sep 20 2009, 12:56 PM Post #12
Franchise Player Posts: 3,313 Group: Moderator Member #78 Joined: July 13, 2006	Well people can always grumble about the system - look at us, thanks to the 'system' of randomly drawn groups we got lumped with 3 of the best teams in the whole event! Hows that for luck after waiting 28 years to be in the competition? we could be crying out for some sort of seeding system instead based on that....BUT ultimately the system is what it is and these guys are (mostly) professional players and just have to get on with it.



Vilius	Sep 20 2009, 01:01 PM Post #13
Sixth Man Posts: 338 Group: Member Member #2,520 Joined: July 13, 2007	Sam_H Sep 20 2009, 12:56 PM Well people can always grumble about the system - look at us, thanks to the 'system' of randomly drawn groups we got lumped with 3 of the best teams in the whole event! Hows that for luck after waiting 28 years to be in the competition? we could be crying out for some sort of seeding system instead based on that....BUT ultimately the system is what it is and these guys are (mostly) professional players and just have to get on with it. There's no need to complain about the way the draw is held because it has very clear criteria. I mean teams who finished 1st-4th are seeded first, 5th-8th are seeded 2nd and so on. So you may only complain by bad lack of getting the strongest teams from each seed. It has nothing to do with the competition system. If you teams were drawn randomly without any seeding then you could say that it's not fair. I just think that the schedule is not fair to some teams and it can be easily changed by moving all quarter-finals on the same day. All teams should have the same conditions. That's all I'm saying.
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Sam_H	Sep 20 2009, 01:17 PM Post #14
Franchise Player Posts: 3,313 Group: Moderator Member #78 Joined: July 13, 2006	But then you'd get people moaning that they have to play at 10.00 (ever seen a pro baller who likes to play in the morning?!) and that they can't get loose etc for that time of day. Then you'd have the people who play in the 20.00 game moaning that the teams that played earlier in the day still get more rest time, etc. I bet a lot of it has to do with TV though. The priority is fitting around what the TV network(s) wants, not what is fair to the players. Probably TV has said they don't want to show basketball all day long on any particular day.



Vilius	Sep 20 2009, 01:34 PM Post #15
Sixth Man Posts: 338 Group: Member Member #2,520 Joined: July 13, 2007	Sam_H Sep 20 2009, 01:17 PM But then you'd get people moaning that they have to play at 10.00 (ever seen a pro baller who likes to play in the morning?!) and that they can't get loose etc for that time of day. Then you'd have the people who play in the 20.00 game moaning that the teams that played earlier in the day still get more rest time, etc. I bet a lot of it has to do with TV though. The priority is fitting around what the TV network(s) wants, not what is fair to the players. Probably TV has said they don't want to show basketball all day long on any particular day. It is obvious that the schedule is created so that the largest amount of games could be shown on TV at the best time. The games could be played in different cities so two games could be played at the same time. It would be perfect if the same city had two quality venues but that's very rare. And if they play in different cities then there might be a need to extend the schedule and add more days without games. The easiest and probably the best solution could be giving one more day of rest for all teams before the semi-finals. In that case two teams will have 2 days of rest and 2 would have 1 day. The conditions won't equal but in my opinion there's less difference between having ~60 hours of rest and ~40 of rest that between ~40 hours and ~20 hours. If such change is made then all teams would be fresh when the final battles begin. We all want to see teams showing their best basketball in semi-finals and final, don't we. If you have a hard quarter-final with an overtime and the next day you face a team which had a day of rest it gets really difficult to win. I don't think it was a coincidence that both in 2007 and in 2009 semi-finals were won by the teams that had an additional day of rest. The organizers want to maximize TV coverage and also keep the visiting fans in the games but the schedule could be improved;
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Matt G	Sep 20 2009, 03:46 PM Post #16
Bench Player Posts: 193 Group: Member Member #3,789 Joined: September 15, 2007	I'm gutted for Slovenia but have to give credit where due - Serbia really stepped up their game. Slovenia were all over them in the first round encounter! And now we have a rematch of the Warsaw first round jawdropper in the final - have to say though that Spain are looking invincible at the moment - reckon they're the safe bet to lift the trophy.



GlennHardaker	Sep 20 2009, 03:56 PM Post #17
Basketball Legend Posts: 9,512 Group: Global Moderator Member #1,234 Joined: December 23, 2006	When Spain lost to Serbia their shooting %age was dismal- 53% from the line and 2/19 from downtown Dont expect he same to happen again tonight though, Spain to lift the trophy
	Feel the (Huddersfield)Heat !


Owen Needles	Sep 20 2009, 05:35 PM Post #18
Rookie Posts: 98 Group: Member Member #1,707 Joined: March 23, 2007	has anyone got a live stream for tonights final? pretty please.



dave f	Sep 20 2009, 05:39 PM Post #19
All-Star Posts: 2,468 Group: Member Member #266 Joined: July 21, 2006	register with bet365 to see live stream



Vilius	Sep 20 2009, 08:12 PM Post #20
Sixth Man Posts: 338 Group: Member Member #2,520 Joined: July 13, 2007	Owen Needles Sep 20 2009, 05:35 PM has anyone got a live stream for tonights final? pretty please. Some of these links should work. http://zulu.mk/live/sitel http://www.rojadirecta.com/freedocast/5320426A31D4213F109A http://www.rojadirecta.com/ustream/m%C3%A1s-baloncesto-tv http://www.rojadirecta.com/ustream/euro-basket2 http://sport.tvp.pl/ http://www.atdhe.net/7550/watch-spain-vs-serbia http://www.justin.tv/masdeportes04tv/ http://www.rojadirecta.com/justin/romania_hd http://www.rojadirecta.com/justin/sportsrc4 http://www.rojadirecta.com/justin/cheveyosporttv http://www.rojadirecta.com/justin/zabava_sport http://www.fromsport.com/video-78044.html Congrats to Greece for winning bronze.
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GlennHardaker	Sep 20 2009, 09:34 PM Post #21
Basketball Legend Posts: 9,512 Group: Global Moderator Member #1,234 Joined: December 23, 2006	still down to be on ESPN- programme starts in 15 minutes or so
	Feel the (Huddersfield)Heat !


nashstar	Sep 20 2009, 10:01 PM Post #22
Rookie Posts: 24 Group: Member Member #4,635 Joined: October 27, 2007	Well done Spain, well deserved win!



Matt G	Sep 20 2009, 11:50 PM Post #23
Bench Player Posts: 193 Group: Member Member #3,789 Joined: September 15, 2007	Congratulations to Spain salutes Pau as MVP. That was definately payback!



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