Sergio Scariolo: “We have a group that’s very difficult to beat but easy to qualify”

• The Spanish basketball team, sponsored by CaixaBank, will start playing in the 2017 Eurobasket championship on 31 August, with the aim of winning gold again, as they did in 2015. Sergio Scariolo, national coach, is taking on another European event as the head of a team that has already come out on top on three prior occasions: at the 2009 Eurobasket in Poland, at the 2011 Eurobasket in Lithuania and the recent 2015 Eurobasket, played out in France, Croatia, Germany and Latvia. Before the event, we were able to interview the coach from Brescia, Italy, so that he could tell us where the team is at right now and how he is feeling about the upcoming championship.

Good morning, Sergio. There’s another big European basketball event coming up and, once again, Spain is seen as the favourite for gold. Do you ever get used to being so closely scrutinised by everyone? To this pressure?

In my first year as coach, I had one of the strongest teams in the game. Luckily we won the league, but at just 29 I was already working with this pressure.  Like with everything, you can learn to deal with pressure and get used to it. It’s easier for some people to deal with it, others less so, but it also depends on each person’s natural abilities. Some people get nervous and some people less so. It’s very subjective and you need to know how to deal with it.

This team is made up of the biggest stars, who get on in an exemplary fashion. Given that in some countries or sports, bringing together two of the greats can lead to tensions, how does this group manage to keep playing as a team and with the shared leadership they get across on the court?

Our success is down to the great level of collaboration between the players and their skill, at least at any given time in the competitions, when the time comes, the team is more important than the individual and with mutual experience and credibility, developed through years of working well together, generating mutual trust between the technical team and the players.

Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro, the Czech Republic, Romania... What can you tell us about the group we’ve been put in?

It’s a group that’s very difficult to beat but easy to qualify for the second stage.

Which teams do you have in your sights? Who are your greatest rivals that the Spanish team will have to take on to defend its title?

We’ve already got Montenegro and Croatia in our group. Out of the others, there’s Serbia, Turkey, France, Lithuania, Italy, Slovenia or Latvia, who could be a dark horse in the competition. There are many teams that would be perfectly able to win one of the medals. That’s the nice thing about Eurobasket and the tricky thing too. We have all of the best high-level basketball teams from the continent, which doesn’t happen, for example, in other competitions where the level of the teams from all around the world sometimes includes opposition teams that are easily beaten.

Let’s talk about you for a minute: if Spain wins gold, you, Sergio Scariolo, will have won four gold medals the four times you’ve participated in the European championship. This is something that only Spandaryan achieved when he lead the USSR, winning 10 out of 11 championship in the 50s and 60s. What does that mean for you? Do trainers have a special place inside themselves, away from the team?

The coach’s success is the team’s success. I don’t have individual statistics, I’m not playing a game to make myself stand out at someone else’s expense. My work is to try and coordinate the talent and efforts of the players, to get them competing in the best environment possible in the changing rooms, on-court tactics, and that’s why I’m sure that any success that the coach has is the success of the team.

What can we take from the first games of the Gira Ñ? Are the players at the expected level?

We’ve had a lot of setbacks this year. We’ve lost six of the twelve players from the Olympic team and we’re working on adapting, changing, replacing and maturing. We are hoping to get everyone up to scratch and to grow as a team.

One last question. An easy one: Are we going to win?

The answer’s an easy on too: Let’s hope so!

Thanks for your time! Good luck in the upcoming event!