Picture: Olympics: Nigeria soar over Tunisia in men’s basketball

Posted by admin Africa & World Politics, Headlines, Soccer, Sports, Track & Field Monday, July 30th, 2012

COACH of the Tunisia basketball team, Abdel Tlatli, has said that lack of real international exposure put a lot of pressure on his team in the match a against Nigeria.

The Tunisians lost 60-56 to Nigerians in the men’s opening match at the London Olympics. He maintained that Nigerian players have always been at advantage over his country in view of their exposure and physical strength.

“We knew they were great going into the encounter,” he said. “We didn’t have that kind of physical strength exhibited by Nigerians. We expected nothing less from them, having watched them over time.”

The coach said that even though they had arrived in London as African champions, the pressure was more on them because it was their first appearance in such a competition. He said: “We are champions but the Olympics is a collection of great teams of the world and we have never been here in the past.

“The players were under heavy pressure to say the least. All I to tried do was to manage the huge challenge in terms of exposure by making them believe in themselves. I told them we could either win or lose but the final result depended on how we approached the game.

“We eventually lost but there’s surely nothing to regret about it. It is a good learning point for the future of Tunisia basketball.”

The coach said they would put in their best in their remaining four matches of the competition: “In games, some things eventually turn out differently from what was originally envisaged and so we cannot begin to say we may no longer do this or that.

“What we intend to is take the next games one after the other. All we need is to play well.”

via Guardianwp_posts