By Marti Artigas

 

Joventut point-guard Sergi Costa was the only 1996 born player with Spain last summer when they earned the bronze medal of the U16 European Championship. One year later spaniards are competing again for the medals with a really intriguing group with Costa, Marc Bauzà and Carlos Martínez with the biggest upside there. After two journeys team coached by Diego Ocampo is already with a 2-0 record after beating Latvia (65-63) and Russia (88-64). Marc Garcia ('96), from Manresa, is the current scoring leader of the team with 19.0 points and 50% behind the arc. Eurohopes talked with Costa about his sensations.

 

6'2'' prospect explains that "about the tournament we must compete every game the best as possible, because the demand level is really high. In our league we are not used to play against strong players like the ones playing here". There are great teams in the event held in Latvia and Lithuania. Costa tells that "we already know Turkey, and they have a very good and complete team. There are also Italy, France and Croatia, even this last team has started playing bad. But they will recover. 

 

In the opener they struggled to beat hosts (Latvia). He says that "we knew it was a difficult contest, because most of us never played a competition with this level. We started well, but Latvia recovered after some bad minutes of us on offense. But we played well on clutch time". In the game against Russia "first half was tied because they used their physical skills, but in the third quarter we had a great moment from three points line". 

 

Today spaniards face Ukraine, also with two wins, and with 6'4'' shooting-guard Oleksandr Kobets ('96) as their leader with 21.5 points and 50% FG.

 

Twitter of the author: @marti_artigas

 

Photo: FIBA Europe / Romans Koksarovs