Olympic basketball final

Spain played the 2008 Beijing Olympics basketball final against almighty US. US won a deserved gold medal by beating the Spanish national team 118-107. However, the game was closer that anyone might have expected. I am thrilled by the courage and self-belief of the Spanish players. It has been an amazing match that will be remembered for a long time and that will have produced lots of new basketball fans.

This US basketball team is better that any other current squad in the world, but they had to sweat their shirts to prove that they really were the Redeem Team and that they were worthy of the Dream Team II tag. Spain's Golden Basketball Generation (as they are called in Spain) have shown that they are good challengers of the US power and the second best team in the world: 2006 World Champions, 2007 Eurocup Runner-up and 2008 Olympics silver medal.

The star-studded US squad showed the following roster: Carlos Boozer, Jason Kidd, LeBron James, Deron Williams, Michael Redd, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Tayshaun Prince and Carmelo Anthony. Surely Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan or Paul Pierce would have made the US team stronger, but no one can say the US didn't show up with a close-to-best pick.

Referees didn't apply all FIBA rules to the US players and besides the NBA players don't go through any anti-dopping tests. You should factor that in and maybe the result would have been different.

In any case, Spain are happy with this silver medal as we fought with all our heart for the gold against and all-star team and are not disappointed with ourselves. I think I have just watched one of the best basketball match by the Spanish national team ever, but I think they could have done it even better.

- Gasol brothers weren't at their maximum for this final, exhausted after a long season and great Olympics Games;
- the fact that pointguard José Calderón didn't play this final was a major setback for Spain, similar to the US missing Kevin Garnett;
- Ricky Rubio had his hand injured, but he still had to play 29' because we had no other pointguard!!
- Raúl López didn't believe in himself and shouldn't have been selected for this Olympics,
- Berni Rodriguez and Alex Mumbrú are very good, but there are a couple of better players in Spain,
- old captain Carlos Jiménez played well; pity he missed that three-point shooter after Wade's last;
- Juan Carlos Navarro redeemed himself from his awful previous performance in the Olympics with his most beautiful string of "bombas" (floaters)
- Jorge Garbajosa hasn't played during the whole season due to operations and was a shadow of the wonderful player he was in 2006 Japan World Championship.

Love and freedom.