Thanks to Spain and USA for a great basketball game
August 24, 2008 by Christophe · 20 Comments
So the Redeem Team won the gold medal in Beijing. What in the end looked like no surprise must actually be considered a deserved win by the best team of the tournament: Nothing more and nothing less. The final game showed that the gap between the USA and the rest of the world is not widening again, but that USA needs to prepare and bring their best players in order to beat a Spanish team by only 11 points.
Olympics Live: Argentina vs. Lithuania, USA vs. Spain
August 23, 2008 by Christophe · 7 Comments
If Manu Ginobili is out (because of his ankle injury against Team USA), Lithuania is the favorite in this game and will once again go home with the bronze medal from the Olympics. (Broadcast starts with the 2nd half!)
The Gold Medal game will feature the current World Champion Spain and the Gasol brothers against the USA Redeem Team that wants to get back the Gold Medal they lost in 2004 against Argentina. Read more
Today’s Chinese cigarettes
August 23, 2008 by Christophe · 4 Comments
The Olympic Basketball tournament is coming to an end with the ladies’ finals today and the men’s tomorrow. Let’s take a look at some of funny stories from the last few days.
Olympics: Spain vs Lithuania and USA vs Argentina LIVE
August 21, 2008 by Tobias · 14 Comments
It is down to the final four nations and looks like the best of both worlds: Spain and Lithuania representing Europe - USA and Argentina representing America. Great, isn’t it?
BallinEurope will cover the Spain vs. Lithuania starting 2.pm central European time while the following blogs will live blog Team USA vs. Argentina:
(still to come - nobody has announced a live blog yet in the US)
Olympic Quarterfinals review
August 20, 2008 by Christophe · 1 Comment
Today, the four quarterfinals of the Olympic men’s basketball tournament saw only one close game. Luckily, I had the opportunity to see at least the second half of this thriller.
Today’s Chinese cigarettes
August 18, 2008 by Christophe · 1 Comment
The final day of the group phase has started, and here are the latest stories from and around the Wukeson Arena of Beijing.
Olympics: Team USA vs. Germany LIVE
This might be one of the most sad games in Germany’s basketball history. Pascal Roller, Germany’s starting point guard announced that he will stop playing after the Olympics. Another German seems to follow him now: Dirk Nowitzki. Of course Nowitzki will keep playing for the Dallas Mavericks, but this might be his last appearance with the German national team ever, meaning somebody else will leave too: Chris Kaman. No Nowitzki, No Kaman - that easy.
After the terrible loss against China, Team USA - a team that even convinced or suprised the biggest “haters” - is waiting in the last game of group play. Sportingbet’s odds for a win of Germany is 15.00 - a US win equals to … 1.00 - meaning you will not make a dime on betting on Team USA.
At least Germany is not the only team with bad odds like that - another team is Angola .. way to go Germany!
Stiil, here is the live blog of Pascal Roller, Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman’s last game wearing the German “Adler”.
Olympics: Game day in pictures
After Germany’s bitter defeat by China it is time to share some of the great pictures of this game. Of course it was not a high scoring game. It was even one of the worst games Team Germany ever had, but it was a fight and had many emotions in it. Being German I hated to see Germany loose, but I rather see a game like that than the most boring game of the Olympics so far: Team USA vs. Spain.
Germany vs. China + Team USA vs. Spain - LIVE
August 16, 2008 by Tobias · 5 Comments
Here we go - the day every single European and especially Spanish basketball fan has waited for. Well, is it really? There is no doubt, that Team USA wants to win every single game, including the final, to take it all, but how about Spain? Do they really have or want to win this game?
Remember this is still group play, which only determines your next opponent in the Quarterfinals.
Team USA has to win, no doubt. They will be motivated as anything, even though, only Kobe Bryant was watching the Spanish team play live so far - pretty strange for a team that tells us over and over, not taking gold will be unacceptable, claims itself the the redeem team and tells us they take every opponent very serious.
I am not expecting Spain to win this game, Ricky and Rudy will only show what they are capable of, while the rest of the Spanish national team is already known to US basketball fans (Gasol, Gasol, Calderon, Navarro, Garbajosa).
BallinEurope will blog the game LIVE, which starts Saturday at 10:15am US ET and 16:15 Central European time (10:15pm local time in Beijing). Should be a great game, but the important game will follow later in the knock out stage.
Today’s Chinese cigarettes
August 15, 2008 by Christophe · 3 Comments
Day 3 of the Olympic Tournament is over and Team USA, Spain as well as Lithuania are still without any loss. Here are the short stories that we heard around the tournament.
