Hernan Sartori
08/03/2021 19:34
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 08/03/2021 19:34
The hard.
The tough one.
The surly.
The owner of a protective breastplate.
The sparse.
The iceberg when it comes to not being dominated by emotions in the middle of the game.
He who never breaks ... broke.
Luis Alberto Scola, the great captain of the Argentine basketball team, knew then that his career with the number 4 light blue and white jersey had come to an end.
But what happened in Saitama was beyond imagination.
Because if a big man was fired, he had to be fired in a big way.
And that's just how it was.
Sergio Hernández hugged him after taking him 51s4 from the end of the painful 97-59 loss to Australia, the power forward walked to the bench and sat down.
Suddenly he realized that he was the only one sitting in the stadium.
Everybody stand up.
His companions.
Your rivals.
The referees.
The members of the delegations that functioned as spectators.
Applause and more applause.
An unequivocal sign of respect for
a monster of world sport
: the only basketball player who had the luxury of playing
5 World Cups
(he was runner-up in Indianapolis 2002 and China 2019) and
5 Olympic Games
, with gold in Athens 2004 and bronze in Beijing 2008 included .
“I always try to get away from these situations.
It's a low blow.
I'm a bit emotionally beaten.
Everything came to me all at once.
I tried to maintain my composure as much as I could.
But I go in peace.
It was what I wanted to do: get to the last minute by working my way, on my terms, and I was able to do it.
I go in peace.
The Selection is much more than names.
I gave him my maximum commitment, effort and the best years of my career, "he said before going to the locker room.
Between the 1999 South American Championship in Bahía Blanca and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games,
22 years, 173 official matches and 2,857 points
passed
.
Second historical scorer of the World Cups and fourth in the Olympic events
, his worth goes far beyond statistics.
Luis Scola, at age 19, at the 1999 South American Championship in Bahía Blanca AP Photo
Because the last banner of the Golden Generation debuted purple, made his hair dance to the rhythm of that majestic footwork and said goodbye shaved and with gray hair.
Those of experience.
Those that leave teachings.
If his last teammates will know, two of whom were not even born when
Luifa
first dressed in light blue and white in the Major.
Yes,
Tiago Splitter
will know
, to whom he taught everything in Baskonia and who always ruined the night in an Argentina-Brazil.
Yes
Yao Ming
will know
, with whom he put together a duo that was strengthened in the Houston Rockets and the one who later opened the door to the Chinese market, where he ended up playing.
Yes,
Brooklyn Nets
will know
, who took him to preach values by example in young people who painted well.
Until Luis did not sit down anymore, he did not play and left.
A competitive animal
Luis Scola, at the 2019 China World Cup Photo EFE
Scola always needed competition.
In Europe, in the United States and with the National Team.
Gregg Popovich
and
RC Buford
know well that one of their few mistakes as the coach and general manager of the San Antonio Spurs was giving up their rights to Houston.
The
vendetta
of Scola came whenever they
painted
face in games in Texas.
He never shut up. Hurricane
Luifa
was always frontal
.
In each of the 15 talks of no less than an hour with this journalist, which became extensive interviews in
Clarín
between 2007 and 2020, Scola reflected, counterattacked, listened, was interested in talking about each proposed topic, challenged his interlocutor , He threw down walls, he distrusted, he never complained about a title and thanked him.
"They recognize me less in Argentina than in Europe"
, he went to the point in April 2007 from Vitoria.
“I feel like a protagonist of the NBA”, he confessed in November 2010. “I want to be part of another reconstruction”, he warned in August 2013. And he stood up against the leadership of the CAB:
“If I don't play the World Cup (in Spain) It will be because of a horrendous management ”
.
That interview was never recorded.
You were warned.
He didn't say a word.
"I am here to accompany, no longer to be the locomotive," he warned after the 2014 World Cup in a restaurant in Madrid.
It would still be.
"My life is a roller coaster that does not stop," he wasted joy in May 2016 when he was chosen as the Olympic flag bearer.
"In the National Team they have to start running from the middle," he sentenced in August 2017. Heh.
"Sport does not need people singing in stadiums," he shook in June 2020, the fierce start of the pandemic.
"Do you think I'm going to get a bitch for what I said?" He asked, knowing that that sentence would be the title of the interview.
He didn't ask to alter a single comma.
Now a project awaits him in Italy and the NFT market, because his head never stopped.
Pamela, Tiago, Tomás, Matías and Lucas are and will be her bras.
And he will have to deal with that void that he will encounter.
The same void left by those who enjoyed watching him play on.
This is Luis Scola, the player that everyone will always want to have on their team.
HS
Look also
Tokyo 2020: why Luis Scola, the most important player in the history of Argentine basketball, will continue to play
Manu Ginobili, surrendered at the feet of Luis Scola: "I'm still a little touched, what a piece of professional"
