“Cordoba basketball has wasted many moments”

The Cordoba Rafa Sanz participated this Monday in the first program of ‘Tiempo Muerto’, the new section of the Twitch of CORDÓPOLIS that will be emitted every alternate Tuesday from 20:00, counting as protagonists with people from Cordoba sports who are currently outside the province. In this sense, the historic basketball coach is currently in the highest male category in Portugal, where he directs the Academic of Coimbra, with the tough challenge of reaching permanence. In an hour of conversation, among other topics, the Califa coach recalled how he arrived at the Portuguese team, after two years away from the professional benches and with a permanent job in the Andalusian Basketball Federation. “They were looking for a change of coach and, although at the beginning the positions were very far apart, they ended up showing a firmer interest and we reached an agreement,” he said, admitting that he did not think about it “much” and, “in a few hours, I I saw from sitting in the Federation to being in Portugal “.

A division that presents a high disparity between its teams, since, although it is true that the most prominent (Benfica, Sporting or Porto) play in Europe and “in Spain they would be teams from the lower area of ​​the ACB”, Sanz’s team It could be compared to a club that “in LEB Plata would go up for sure, and in LEB Oro we would not save ourselves.” He also stressed that each team has a maximum of five foreign players, so “the Portuguese player is priced very high.”

Likewise, with regard to Cordoba basketball, he indicated that “in Córdoba you have to clearly differentiate between the school sport and the elite sport,” because “elite sport without a base makes little sense. It has to be fed back. You have to look for formulas for basketball to play. ” Of course, he emphasizes that “basketball has an advantage over other sports -except for football- and it is that in Córdoba it likes it a lot. The interest will be less and less if that is not cultivated”, although it also recognizes that “it is many moments have been wasted, and they will continue to be wasted. ”

One of the benchmarks for the growth of any discipline, in the words of Sanz, is the Córdoba Patrimonio, which “slipped into the First Division only with players from the province, so it has benefited from the level of the players from Córdoba “and” García Román has been finding recognition for so much sacrifice he has made. Futsal has had many factors in its favor, and the players have been the most important; then the decline of Córdoba CF, the inoperation of basketball, and they have had a fantastic marketing vision using the colors, the anthem and the mascot. ”

Regarding a possible return in the future, the coach emphasizes that “if there were an interesting project in Córdoba, I would love to come back”, and that “basketball, both in Salesianos and in many other places, is marked by people, people with a lot of altruism and devotion to young people, “again emphasizing that” as long as we don’t have a benchmark team, no one will want to come to Córdoba. ”