Can: Adidas İstanbul Cup is Over!

A scene from the Turkey-Serbia warm-up match.

2010 FIBA Basketball World Cup is approaching and Turkish National team is continuing its preparation for the tournament. There had been a classical camping period in Bormio, Italy, however head coach Bogdan Tanjevic was away from the team as he had a serious operation regarding his colon cancer. There has been several debates about changing the head coach before the tournament but the federation insisted on waiting for Tanjevic to come back. He was on the side line in Adidas İstanbul Cup but he is occasionally away from his energy that we used to see in the previous years. There is nothing new about the squad except the contribution of Cevher Özer and Evren Büker who had a wonderful season with Galatasaray.

In the first day of the cup, Turkey played against Iran and had a comfortable win. The second game was with New Zealand who made a great intro with their famous Haka dance. The rival was again a simple challenge and Turkey had an easy win. The last game of the tournament would determine the champion. The game between Serbia and Turkey was expected to be challenging but it had been a training session for Serbia except the third period in which Sinan Güler and Kerem Gönlüm tried to keep their team awake but there was not any scoring contribution from anyone else. The defeat is not important as it was a friendly game but there are several distortions in the team. We still do not have certain game schemes and we have very small percentage in free throws. Last year, Turkey had shown a remarkable performance in the group stages by defeating Spain, Lithuania and Serbia but then it had been a tragic end with a defeat against Greece. This year, with the existence of the supporters, the national team can go further but in the following 20 days, there are still a lot to do for increasing our motivation.