After spending 305 days away from the slopes, returning to competition is never easy, not even for those chosen. One of them, without a doubt, is Ricky Rubio (El Masnou, 1993), who continues to take small steps towards his reappearance in the basketball elite after overcoming some mental problems. He has given the first two with Spain. The last one, this Sunday in Charleroi. And everything indicates that the third will come with his new team, Barça, which hosts Monaco at the Palau in a Euroleague match on Friday. But the situation requires calm, facing reality day by day and never anticipating events.
After a premiere almost like a movie, because despite Spain's defeat against Latvia in Zaragoza he was seen very active and participatory in important moments, Ricky slowed down the pace somewhat yesterday in Belgium, where La Familia was once again defeated and got into in a small mess in the qualifying phase for Eurobasket 2025. With two defeats in two games, Scariolo's team has been left with no margin for error in a group in which the first three of a total of four pass, always including to host Latvia. So to defend the scepter won in Germany, Spain will have to wake up and take nothing for granted.
There wasn't exactly a great show at the Dome Charleroi and perhaps Ricky Rubio blamed it a bit. Neither team was able to reach 60 points at the end of the duel and at halftime they had a very poor 19-26 on the scoreboard.
The El Masnou point guard was once again a starter, as happened at Príncipe Felipe, but this time his participation was reduced by 13m19s of play after exceeding 20m against Latvia. Furthermore, in the second half he barely played the first part of the third quarter and then ended up following the rest of the game from the bench.
Ricky was less incisive than in his first match, attempting many fewer shots and visibly lacking competitive rhythm. He only shot the basket a couple of times without success and his 4 points came from free throws. He added 4 rebounds and 3 assists to his statistics.
Spain missed a game that, despite the lack of brilliance on the hardwood, they had more than dominated (20-30, minute 22) against an opponent who saw the square ring (2/16 triples at halftime). But from there, Scariolo's team began to block and the surprising Belgians, leaders of the group, grew until they secured the victory.
58 - Belgium (11 8 21 18): Van Buggenhout (-), Mwema (6), Bako (8), Gillet (15) and Obasohan (19) - titular quintet - Samardzic (1), Schwartz (2), Delalieux (5), Tumba (-), Vanwijn (-) and De Ridder (2).
53 - Spain (14 12 13 14): Ricky Rubio (4), López-Arostegui (1), Juancho Hernangómez (2), Parra (10), Pradilla (5) -starting five- Brizuela (14), Abalde (- ), Jaime Fernández (5), Claver (-), Díaz (4), Sáiz (2) and Sima (6).
Referees: Boris Krejic, Nicolas Maestre and Carsten Straube. Eliminated due to fouls Obasohan
Incidents: Match corresponding to the second day of group C qualifying for Eurobasket 2025 played at the Charleroi Dome (Belgium).
