Italy and Spain hit company! Azzurri in the semi-finals and a pass to the World Cup – OA Sport

The outstanding Italian project in wheelchair basketball, which continues the great red streak of basketball that started with the strong national team, reached the quarter-finals of the Olympics, and continued with the deaf national team that won the European title. And here we are talking about Europe: In the continental quarter-finals, the Azzurri beat hosts Spain 62-45, thus winning both the semi-finals and qualification for the World Cup.

This is the eighth entry in the review in which the Azzurri reached the limit for fourth place in 2010, when they lost in the semi-finals to France and in the final to third place from the United States. At the continental level, Italy was not far from 2009. And there’s a curiosity: All three times our national team finished in the top four, it always won (2003, 2005, 2009).

Thanks to a game that played well in the first quarter, point by point, even if Bedzeti was already saddled with three fouls, then High School went into the second, with Papi at 16 points and 30-23 in the first half. The advantage increased to 15 points after 30 minutes, the last ten was pure management.

None of the other quarter-final matches has been completed yet, with Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria and finally the Netherlands and Poland participating, respectively. In short, almost all challenges are between (or almost) neighbors or between countries with a long common history at the geographical level, depending on the situation.

credit: Ciamillo