By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
When he was asked by the Spanish news agency about this possibility, Gasol answer was unexpected: “I don’t believe it. There can’t be a national team without Juan Carlos Navarro. For me basketball means being alongside Navarro, it’s what I’ve lived since Pau was 17 years old and trained with him. Twenty years have passed since then and he still is very honest, very transparent, he always puts the team first, he is a special person. There are not many special people like him”.
Speaking about the absence of injured Sergio Llull he added: “Winning the title already carries a significant emotional burden. Fernance San Emeterio and I have Sergi’s shirt hung in our room, we think about him every day, we feel very close to him and we miss him a lot. Sergi is a fundamental part of our ‘family'”.
As for the goal and what Spain needs to do in order to win gold, things are simple: “It is true that we have been at a very high level in defense, that allows us to run, make easy points and gives us confidence. Historically, self condifence has allowed us to dominate or not the games. The difficult games are going to come, so the benchmark should not be the other teams, but ourselves. We follow the games of Group D (ed.note: the possible rivals in the next phase), but we do it because we like basketball. You can’t follow only a bit of this sport and when you like it, you like it a lot”.
Gasol added that he suffered when he couldn’t play for the national team, he feels proud about the World Cup title won in Japan in 2006 and now he enjoys playing with the generation of players who were inspired by this success: “You see the next generation coming. I do know when they will be ready to lead in one, two or three years, but we are calm because we see that they are great material and they care about the team going forward. I enjoy this in a special way after overcoming a dangerous injury for people on my height.I live it as if I got a second chance.And I feel lucky”.
(Photo: twitter @paugasol )