COLUMN, KOVAČEVIĆ: Why Serbia couldn’t have beaten Finland, not even in its wildest dreams

It’s been 48 hours since the painful loss of the national basketball team against that outsider Finland, so, even though the wounds are still fresh and gaping, some things should be summarized and we should move on…

Of course, many have already highlighted in their comments the sports, tactical, and medical reasons for the eagles’ unexpectedly short flight in the Baltics and the loss of the “already won” European gold, which was supposed to shine like a diamond in the crown of this generation, led by the best basketball player in the world, the Sombor genius Nikola Jokić.

In this regard, it is not disputed that the injury and loss of captain Bogdanović was a big blow for Kari’s team, nor that the coach, by forcing the insufficiently recovered and unpracticed Micić, disrupted the energy balance in the team that had simply crushed and eaten all opponents for breakfast in the preparatory games, including Germany away and the Slovenes with Dončić by 30-plus difference.

And then the injuries of Avramović, Vukčević, and so on, and so forth, followed…

All of this may have affected the game and the result, but this time I would deal with the other, let’s call them karmic, reasons for the collapse of the national team in the sport we consider most national…

First of all, Serbia couldn’t have beaten Markkanen and those ski jumpers even if we had played three matches in a row in Riga! Why?

Certainly not because Finland has the best educational system in the world, because it doesn’t (Germany is No. 1), and especially not because it has better basketball players…
The problem from start to finish was with us…

The aforementioned karma, in our case, also means that a country that suffers and bleeds is not destined or natural to celebrate and win, until it first wins that most important victory—for its own freedom.

It is simply not humane to rejoice while our youth and intellect are bleeding in the Serbian streets under the boots and batons of tyranny.

I think everyone in our basketball team felt that pressure, especially if we know that the game with Finland was played a day after that brutal attack by the gendarmerie on citizens in Novi Sad. The day when Serbia cried the greatest amount of tears in the past decade (due to the huge amount of tear gas fired).

Therefore, it is not normal for us to win anything while those children, those students and citizens, are called Ustashas, terrorists, and foreign mercenaries on the state television where the games were broadcast, before and after them.

Because what kind of victory is that but a Pyrrhic one…

Furthermore… It is not at all natural, moreover, it is not sportsmanlike, for us to win in any sport while during timeouts and halftimes of the games there are commercials for betting shops, alcoholic and carbonated drinks, in which our athletes “act,” those same national team members, who should, I suppose, promote a healthy life to our kids, who see them as idols, and not the seven deadly sins.

It is certainly not understandable for us to celebrate the victories of a basketball association led by a man who wholeheartedly supports terror against young people, including those students from DIF (Faculty of Sports and Physical Education) who had to enter their faculty through the roof the other day, and who should one day play for that same national team and bring medals to Serbia.

Finally, it is also karmic that a national team is defeated when only one of its members (Bogdan Bogdanović) publicly supported the student and citizen protests, and especially when that one person ended up getting injured.

Many measure Bogdan’s absence by the number of points, three-pointers, and rebounds, but it seems to me that without him on the court, that team had a chronic lack of something more important—morality.

And without morality, it’s difficult. In life or sports, it doesn’t matter.