The Germans are again the best in basketball, and in Germany you have no one to talk to about it. Rather, you will find an interlocutor about a third division football match or the series "Crime Scene".
Until the final European basketball championship there were a little more than six hours left. On public radio Deutschlandfunk there was an afternoon news show, a sports block.
First news? The World Championships in Athletics have started in Tokyo. Long jumper Malajka Mihambo says that the coach got sick, she complains that all the athletes - four thousand of them - are crammed into the same hotel, causing infections to spread, and there is a poor selection of vegan food in the hotel itself.
So, first athletics (Mihambo brought silver to Germany a little later in the day), and only then the final of the European Basketball Championship.
16,5 percent share
In a grandiose game, Germany defeated Turkey (88:83) and thus did something that is rarely seen - united the titles of world and European champions.
However, it is not easy to "popularize" basketball in a country where it is easier to find an interlocutor on the topic of a third league football match than the European or world basketball championship. After football, there are a hundred empty seats, then athletics, skiing, formula, maybe handball.
And basketball? The final in Riga was played in prime time and was broadcast by the accessible television RTL (matches not played by Germany were only on paid Telecom service Magenta).
The final was watched by 3,9 million people, which was enough for a share of only 16,5 percent. Solid for basketball in Germany, unimaginable in a country like Serbia. After all, who knows how many of those 3,9 million viewers were rooting for Turkey...
At the same time, between 6 and 6,5 million people watched the diary and the famous crime series "Crime Scene" on the first public service program.
So much for the constant attempts of the basketball Euroleague to "fire" the Germans for basketball, hoping for the fruits of a large market where people have deeper pockets. But these people love football and Crime Scene.
The best generation ever
And Germany has its best generation since basketball was played. Led by Dennis Schroeder, they showed team play in Riga, with contributions from the wide side, and that without several important players who had dropped out earlier due to injuries.
Of all people, the matter was solved by Isak Bonga, a Partizan basketball player. He scored 20 points, shot 4/4 for three. "Swiss knife" - that's what coach Alan Ibrahimagić called Bonga, who led the team throughout the championship in the absence of the ill coach Alex Mumbru.
"For me, this is like a field trip with my best friends, and along the way we play basketball and have fun," Bonga said.
tabloid BILD exclaimed, "What a team! What a fight!" It is about the "crowning of our giants", writes that newspaper.
Sports show, a public service portal, writes that the team not only impressed with professionalism, spectacular basketball and great joy in the game. "There is also a cordial togetherness of players, they are unconditionally there for each other and act responsibly as ambassadors of their sport. This is also a praiseworthy strength of resistance in the face of all difficulties."
In the end, it all comes down to football
Let's say, a historical generation, unrepeatable. She met the Serbian national team twice in her quest to reach the top of basketball - won in Manila, lost in Paris. They did not meet in Riga thanks to the desperation of the Serbian team, although the German basketball public expected that duel.
It's not just Schroeder and Bonga, nor Franz Wagner, Daniel Theiss and Andy Obst. This German generation has many experienced players who are still in their best years or their best years are yet to come.
List Velt writes that German football players have something to learn from basketball players. Because somehow it always ends up in football.
When the basketball players became world champions in Manila (September 10, 2023), the Football Association decided to replace coach Hansi Flick after a friendly match. Guess what the top sports news was that day.
The editors of "Vremena" received a request for denials to the article "Parents of Elementary School '20. Oktobar' tonight demand the resignation of the principal" published on October 29. We transmit it in its entirety and without changes
Like before Caro Claire Burke not only exposed the false image of a traditional woman in America, but also showed the level of women's rights in general - feminists claim. This novel is a direct attack on the traditional way of life - according to conservative Christian women
Forty years of a hairy creature who survived a nuclear disaster on Malmak, and everything he knows about America he learned from an advertising-paid program
In the underdeveloped south, where the saying Pyrrhic victory was born, where 813 men were killed because they did not want to convert to Islam, where the ancient Romans saw war elephants for the first time and many other unrepeatable things
A 24-carat pink diamond, known as the Bulgari Pink, has sold for more than $14,6 million at an auction in Geneva
At the moment when the institutions of the Republic are destroyed, when Vučić's octopus is still alive, when people are disgusted by the injustice and the stench left behind by the Essenes regime, we have, as Machiavelli said, only civic virtue as the fuel with which we can return to the beginning
The four independent members of REM are an example of perseverance and civic responsibility. Rodoljub Šabić even, upon leaving the premises of REM, after the sentencing of the Informer, experienced that the Essenes insulted him, hit him with their hands and feet. But that too will soon be over
Vučić pardoned the batterers and Dijana Hrkalović. The election winners should abolish the sultan's power that allows one man to run afoul of the entire judicial system
Interview: Branko Stamenković, public prosecutor of the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office
A black picture and the breakdown of the rule of law subscribeThe archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
See all
