FIBA 2019 World Championship Final, Argentina – Spain

PokerioMokykla.comUpdated 2024 m. October 31 d.

The final day of the long-awaited World Championship for all basketball fans has dawned, and in the decisive match for the title of the best team in the world, the national teams of Argentina and Spain will face off. These two teams have reached the final without a single defeat, and one of them will experience their first and undoubtedly most painful loss in the championship. Below, we will review the strengths of both teams, the key factors that will determine the victory of one team or the other, and provide our predictions for the final match.

Final match

Argentina – Spain (2.55 odds – 1.50 odds, betsafe)

This year's Basketball World Cup continues to surprise with unexpected results. None of the top 3 teams predicted by experts before the championship (USA, Serbia, Greece) even made it to the semifinals, and the final will feature the biggest surprise of the tournament, Argentina, and Spain, who continue to demonstrate a winner's mentality. The Argentinians, who had 101 odds to win the World Championship, are defying early predictions and truly showing solid play on both ends of the court. There are no big questions about Spain's presence at this stage – although this team is somewhat weaker “on paper” than in previous years, the core of the team remains the same, and they still have the aura of winners.

Argentina's Key to Victory

Although the teams have already played 7 matches in this championship, in almost all of them, the Argentine team was led forward by the duo of Campazzo and Scola and their excellent mutual play. In the upcoming final match of the championship, the key to victory for the Argentine team should be:

  1. Good Defense – The Argentinians demonstrated impressive defense in the match against the French team, allowing one of the most talented teams in the tournament to score just 66 points. Campazzo made excellent use of his speed after switching defenders, disrupting the opposing guards, and the team defense worked perfectly with top-level communication. Demonstrating something similar in the final can definitely lead to success.
  2. The Tandem of L. Scola and F. Campazzo – This is one of the hardest-to-stop duos in the championship and remains a question mark for both opponents and basketball fans. With each match, Scola finds new ways to surprise and sometimes makes you wonder how a 39-year-old player, spending almost 30 minutes on the court, can maintain such a high level of play and pace throughout the game. Meanwhile, Campazzo is one of the most unpredictable and creative players in the championship, making him difficult to predict, and once he finds his rhythm, stopping him can be extremely challenging.

Spain's Key to Victory

The composition of the Spanish team, similar to Argentina's, is well-balanced, and on a good day, any player can take the initiative and lead the team forward. In any case, knowing the importance of the match, it is likely that for Spain to win, the most important moments will be:

  1. Utilizing Experience – The Spanish team is much more experienced, especially on the international front, where they have been dominating for years. The Spaniards have won practically everything: from World and European Championships to medals in the Olympic Games. The Spanish team has so many experienced players that one can definitely expect a solid, high-level match from them, given the enormous importance of this match.
  2. Individual Mastery – Although the Argentine team has good, talented players, it must be acknowledged that the Spanish team is much more talented and has higher-level players. The main players of both teams (e.g., Campazzo and Scola – Rubio and Gasol) are quite similar in level, and if there is no big difference between them, the remaining 10 players show a significant difference. We can talk about S. Lull, who is one of the best Europeans in “Clutch” situations, as well as Willy and Juancho Hernangomez, who look good in the NBA. Argentina's lineup is more even, but Spain's is definitely more talented, and in a nerve-wracking game like this, that is a very important factor.

Prediction

According to the set lines (2.55 – 1.5), we see that the Spanish team is considered the favorite to win the championship, and it would be very difficult to disagree with that. Yes, the Argentinians won against the Serbian and French teams, but probably everyone who saw both matches will agree that both the Serbs and the French looked very poor and were not in their best form. It's hard to say what happened. Of course, the good play of the Argentinians contributed to this, but especially the match against France showed that it was not so much the Argentinians performing miracles as the French simply not playing well.

The Spanish team, after playing 2 overtimes against the Australian team, when they managed to save themselves twice and finally win, should be motivated and emotionally uplifted. The most important players of the Spaniards are much more experienced and individually stronger, so it is likely that in the most important match of the championship, the experience factor will work, and the Europeans will become champions. The -4 handicap with 1.9 odds is very attractive considering all the circumstances of this match.