By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
A few days ahead of the FIBA World Cup, Spain’s Willy Hernangomez spoke to FIBA.basketball and shared his excitement to play for his national team alongside his brother, while he also set some goals for the selection.
“We really feel like a family; we love to be together and to fight together with the Spanish jersey on our shoulders. There is great chemistry, a great camaraderie in this group of guys. I really love it. We all fight for one, we play for each other, and we are united. That is one of our biggest strengths, and we won’t give up, ever”, tells Hernangomez, who happens to play on the team alongside his brother, Juanco.
“It’s so great to be able to play with my brother. We have been talking about this summer for some weeks now and finally, we are here together with the Spanish jersey on our shoulders doing what we love the most: playing basketball and representing our country. We don’t see each other often during the season so to be able to spend time and play with him feels very good. Juancho is also very motivated for this summer, and we both want to help the team have a successful run in China. We want to help the Roja win and we want to win medals and titles with the national team“, he adds.
Spain will face Tunisia in Guangzhou on August 31, then Puerto Rico and Iran during the First Round. Willy breaks down the opponents and focuses on Spain’s strength.
“It’s a very good group, and every team can go to the next round. In a competition like the FIBA World Cup, you have to respect every team and play at your best level because every game is different. We are one of the best teams in the world, so every opponent that plays against us is going to want to beat us. We will need to be focused and play our best game to win and go to the next round with the best record. Puerto Rico, Iran and Tunisia are very good teams and they are also coming to China with ambitions to go to the next round and to make their fellow compatriots proud. There are always surprises, teams who are supposedly less talented that win against top teams in a competition like the FIBA World Cup and we don’t want to be one of them. We want to win all three games in the first round”.
As for Spain’s biggest goal for the FIBA World Cup, Hernangomez explains.
“We want to have another great campaign and continue with the same dynamics as the last international competitions we participated in the last couple of years. We won gold at the FIBA EuroBasket 2015 in France, we won bronze in Rio (Olympics) the year after and we won another bronze medal in the last EuroBasket”.