By Eurohoops Team / info@eurohoops.net
Competing in Group I of the FIBA 2023 World Cup Qualifiers, the Turkish National Basketball Team will play a critical match against Belgium on Friday, November 11 at Sinan Erdem Sports Hall.
Before this important match, the national team’s head coach Ergin Ataman talked to the press and explained the importance of the contest, the players his team will be missing, and what he expects on the floor.
As he said: “I would like to make a call to basketball fans living in Istanbul from here. Belgium is not a flashy opponent like France, Slovenia, or Serbia, but they are a team that made it to the last 16 of the EuroBasket. We need to use the home-court advantage. Players are going through a busy period. In other words, we see that those games are still not fully settled in the schedule by FIBA and EuroLeague. Likewise, as of this evening, after a light training session, we will send our four important players back to their team, Fenerbahce. They also have a tough EuroLeague game on Thursday night”.
Ataman will also have to coach both the national team and Anadolu Efes: “I’m here, I’ll be the head of the team today and tomorrow morning. Tomorrow evening, I will fly to Madrid with Anadolu Efes and I will be at the head of the team in the Real Madrid match which we will play on Thursday. We’ll come back after the game and meet on Friday morning. By doing our last tactical training, we will play the Belgium game on Friday night. The conditions are tough, but we have to win, I believe we will win.
The issue is what happens with the players, and specifically with center Sertac Sanli not getting permission from Barcelona to play: “I don’t have much trouble, I will not be able to take part in only one practice. Still, there are problems for the players. In addition, the issue is not only training, for example, four players of Fenerbahce will also play in the EuroLeague match on Thursday evening and then play for the national team on Friday. Unfortunately, Barcelona does not give us Sertac Sanlı, so we will not be able to use a very important player for us.
Some EuroLeague clubs do not allow players, while some do. For example, Virtus Bologna permits Ismael Bako to play from Belgium, he will be in the squad against us on Friday night. Also, Retin Obasohan will play for ASVEL in the EuroLeague game on Thursday night, but he is in the squad. We will not be able to use Sertac. Such contradictions must end now”.
Ataman once more said that he hopes for a solution: “It was said that there would be a solution to this situation, but the only solution they found was not to play a game on Friday night. The issue is not just a match, there is preparation for it, and there is an increasing workload of the players. A much more radical solution must be devised. When we look at it from our perspective, we included all of our players playing in the Turkish League. I would like to thank our clubs, especially Fenerbahce, from here, they sent all four Turkish players in their squad to the national team. I would also like to thank my club Anadolu Efes.
Eghehan Arna is injured, he did not play in the last EuroLeague game. He’s not in the Real Madrid game either, so we removed him from the squad. There is only Buğrahan Tuncer from Anadolu Efes . I need to say thanks to both our clubs for sending their players as the EuroLeague marathon continues. However, it is clear now that a solution must be found, and some serious injuries may even occur as a result.”
The Turkish National Basketball Team is in 5th place in Group I with 2 wins and 4 losses. The teams finishing the group in the top 3 places will qualify for the FIBA World Cup.