This is the biggest satisfaction I would ever imagine by Jasmin Repesa (Croatia)

POSTGAME FLASHQUOTES CROATIA vs GERMANY

Dirk Bauermann (Germany, head coach):
“Congratulations to Croatia, they had a very good game tonight. But, I am not disappointed as our guys played good,too, and tried hard on court. We will have another chance to win tomorrow’s game and qualify for the Beijing Olympic Games. We could have won tonight’s game, if we had not missed the defensive rebound down the stretch when we were down by three points. I think we could have turned this game around. Anyway, that wasn’t the case, Croatia played a little better and we have to accept that. In the first period Croatia played the best defense than any team that we have faced up to now. The referees allowed the physical game, but it took us ten minutes to adapt on that. In these cases you have to do the adjustment quickly; when we did that, we played much better. However, this first quarter caused us to have to run after Croatia. As far as tomorrow’s game, I prefer to play Puerto Rico. I mean both teams are difficult opponents, but Greece is playing at its home, so I will go with Puerto Rico. We have to handle their guards and create trouble to their balanced inside-outside game”.

Jasmin Repesa (Croatia, head coach):
“This is the biggest satisfaction I would ever imagine; to qualify for the Olympic Games after 12 years. This will be a day to remember for me, at 47, and my family. When I accepted the National job offer seven years ago, turning down several propositions from big European clubs, I knew that this important moment would eventually come. We wouldn’t have made it without the Croatian Federation contribution and these excellent players we have. This was a very difficult much considering that we hadn’t beat Germany for 11 years. My players delivered for 40 minutes; for sure we made some mistakes, but when you manage to beat Germany you only have to be satisfied. I would like to thank all the people that supported and believed in us and I promise we would not let them down at the lympic Games.”

Roko Leni Ukic (Croatia, guard):
“This was a very difficult game. Germany holds a very good team and possesses one of the best basketball players in the world in Nowitzki. We played much focused; we might have had some bad moments in the third quarter, but managed to keep Germany scoreless for four minutes. This is a great achievement for us, Croatian basketball and the people in my country. We still don’t know our Group opponents at the Olympic Tournament, so it’s really too early to talk about that. It will be a totally different Tournament compared to the European Championships; I think that it is easier to make it to the Olympic quarterfinals. If we play as we did in the last three games of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament and stay together, than we can face every team that will find on our way. We now have to work and improve during the 15 days till the Beijing Games.”