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)