Poland 2009: Quarter-Finals are becoming a border clash

[by Kris SANTIAGO] - Jak sie masz!

Looking at the pairings of the quarter-finals, this year's Eurobasket delivers us great rivalries between neighboring countries:




Slovenia - Croatia

Both teams' players know each other pretty well, including Jurica Golemac, who is playing for Slovenia but is a naturalized Croatian. Political issues regarding the border of both countries maybe brought up by the local media to spark fire before the game. Somehow, I would bet on the Croatians to win it, although Slovenia is clearly the favorite after playing a fantastic tournament so far. They even overcame injuries of their best players to edge Turkey in the second round to finish first. Croatia played forgettable basketball so far, but for some reason, this could change on Friday when it goes against the neighbors.



France - Spain

Parker vs. Rubio is like Cafe au lait vs. Cortado con hielo. Here comes the Spaniards who were a heavy favorite to win the championship before the first game went down. The team needed some time to bounce back. Now, they are facing a tough task with France, as the French, who barely made it to Poland, are returning strong into European hoops by winning all of their games so far in convincing manner.
It will be interesting to see the duel between the point guards.
Rubio and Parker:
The one is a touted NBA-Star with championships under his belt while the other is an upcoming star in Europe with a possible-future in the NBA in a few years.
With Navarro, Rudy, Garbajosa and the Gasol brothers on his side, Rubio has a lot of help on the court while Parker can rely on Diaw, Turiaf, Mahinmi and Batum. I'm expecting nothing but a thriller with all of this quality players involved.

The last time, the two faced each other; Spain won 87-72 in 2007 in a friendly in which Pau Gasol scored 20 points. Maybe history will repeat itself and Spain will be a hurdle to high to jump over for France.



Turkey - Greece

The young Turkish squad surprised everyone in this tournament so far.
They lost only to Slovenia 67-69 but won five in a row in the previous games and are favorites to beat Greece in this historic battle of two arch-rivals (Raki vs. Ouzo; Gyros Pita vs. Döner Kebab).
The Greek have a good mixture of young players and veterans but looked clueless at times. Still, the blue-whites of coach Kazlauskas may use their advantage of having a bit more experience and maybe advance against the young guns from Turkey.

It will be a nail-bitter from what I see.
Ersan Ilyasova will be scoring as always (He is really in great shape) while Türkoglu will be the x-factor for Turkey as he struggled in the last three games offensively.

For the Greek, Schortsanitis should be having no trouble to bully around the boards while Spanoulis is scoring at will and gets plenty of help through players such as Perperoglou and Zisis.
I see Greece winning narrowly in overtime through a last second shot by Spanoulis.



Russia - Serbia

Timofey Mozgov will be once again the man on which David Blatt counts on. The center emerged as the go-to-guy in Russia's offense and the duel against NBA-center Nenad Krstic will be interesting to watch. The defending European champs which are lacking the experienced Kirilenko and Holden are facing an even younger Serbia that looks not very fluid on offense and relies too much on guard Teodosic's shots from the perimeter. The countries share a long friendship but this time it will be probably coming down to a last second win of one of them and I would be going with Serbia who are holding aces in their hands.

With all that said, I can't wait to watch the games, hope we all are enjoying spectacular plays and last-minute deciders by the involved national-teams!

I'm out like one-sided games.