The touching ceremony for Petteri Kopose and Shawn Huff seen after the game was a beautiful moment. At the same moment, stinging thoughts came to mind, writes Urheilu’s Roope Visuri.
BERLIN.
Coldplay’s Fix You starts playing in Beriini Arena. Petteri Koponen in tears. Shawn Huff in tears. The international basketball federation FIBA has just made a wonderful gesture and paid tribute to the ended careers of two wonderful Finnish basketball players.
The gesture did not come as a surprise, as a similar ceremony was already seen in the match between Finland and Holland in the first group. At that time ended the Dutch Worthy De Jong’s career.
Still, there is something incredibly wonderful and beautiful in the moment when Koponen and Huff walk around the arena. You can also see it from other Susijeng players and the background group. Many Finnish players are sensitive to the situation. Even the Spanish players, who are great in the sport, applaud Huff, Kopose and the entire Finnish team. As well as the hundreds of Finnish spectators who arrived.
At the same time, it is also extremely stinging. You could see from the gestures of the Spanish players that they had to face Finland extremely hard. They went to give sincere and emotional thanks for the hard game to the Finns. Even after the match, until the international press conference, there were huge shouts of Olé from the Spaniards. This all showed how much Spain also respected Finland, which played a wonderful tournament, and how big a victory it was for the top country in the sport. Even before the match, Spain’s successful coach Sergio Scariolo had given a long eulogy about Susijeng and said that he respected Finland a lot.
The situation was terrible. Now, if Susijeng had ever had the chance to surprise the medal games of the European Championships. It was somehow completely incomprehensible that, when starting the match against the reigning world champion, Finland would find the best individual on the field, Lauri Markkanen.
Susijeng had a chance to win the match against the reigning world champion. Susijengi started every match at the European Championship with a great start, and didn’t slow down even now. We even saw the whole team’s show, and not three scorers like against Croatia.
Koponen and Huff also showed with their gestures that they wanted to win the match. Koponen was involved in the match constantly, sometimes venting wildly and sometimes regretting failures with grand gestures. Everything was summed up by the “Come on, Micke!” heard from the media stand. -roar after playing a great match Mikael Jantunen banged an invention in the middle of the third and kept Finland’s winning dreams alive in the final period.
Koponen had done a tremendous job up to this point and drilled himself into playing condition despite the hip problem. There would still have been a wonderful climax.
Losing the ball as a problem
It’s a shame that such high-level basketball doesn’t allow terribly weak periods. After a promising start, Finland lost the ball no less than 19 times and Spain scored 33 of them.
One of the biggest differentiating factors was the American reinforcement of Spain Lorenzo Brown. He improved his grip in the second half and played a significant role when Spain got far enough away from Finland. Before that, Finland’s historic performance in the second half had been preceded. Never before in the European Championship this millennium had Spain conceded 50 points in the opening half. Now Finland did it with 52 points.
You couldn’t even imagine something like this when Koponen and Huff started their careers. In the big picture, it is unbelievable that Petteri Koponen and Shawn Huff can end their careers in such a situation.
After a 55-year hiatus, Finland was now among the top eight and could very well reach sixth in the final results as at that time in the 1967 European Championships.
Let’s remember the first World Cup place secured by playing in August on top of that.
A great tournament, a great national team summer and a great team. Best of all, in a year’s time at the World Championships and in three years’ time at the European Championships at home, Finland will have barely eight first-timers. Susijeng’s curve slopes comfortably upwards.
Read more:
Even the stars of Spain honored the legends of Susijeng with an elegant gesture – Petteri Koponen admitted that he was afraid of the future
Spain beat Susijeng in the EC quarter-finals – Finland had a dazzling opening half, then the reigning world champions showed their strength