It's one of the first big shocks of the Olympic competition. On Sunday, July 28 at 5:15 p.m., Serbia will challenge the American team in the opening match in Group C.
A big meeting that the coach Svetislav Pesic puts into perspective. Honestly, we don't think too much about the Americans. We want to give the best of ourselves at the moment. The first match is important, but I hope it won't be decisive, whatever the result. “, judges the technician at RTS, taken up by Basketnews.
His feeling may be linked to the two other nations present in the group, Puerto Rico and South Sudan, who are not favourites against these two giants of world basketball. An opening defeat against Team USA would probably force the Serbs to win against these two opponents.
Absences in preparation
But the Sudanese's recent performance against the Americans was a reminder that no opponent can be underestimated.
Serbia has not yet revealed its entire strategy in preparation. It will certainly be difficult: they are a team that is aiming for gold. We are too, of course, but they are more favourites than us. In our warm-up match, we didn't have Bogdan (Bogdanovic), (Dejan) Davidovac and (Nikola) Milutinov, so we didn't show all our cards. ” warns Vanja Marinkovic.
In the absence of these players, Serbia had largely lost (79-105) to Stephen Curry and his gang ten days ago. In the process, Svetislav Pesic had estimated that the current American team was better than the “Dream Team” of 1992. In response, Chris Mullin, advising him to ” jump into the Serbian sea to wake up a little “, expects to meet him in Paris to give him ” a little history lesson “.
