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The coach was calm about the team's work "because he was responding." El Verde won and will define the fifth match at the San Lorenzo stadium: "You have to learn to play with pressure," he said.
Athens has done it again . With his heart in his mouth, suffering, in a heart-stopping finale, he beat San Lorenzo 68-65 and tied the series for permanence in the National Basketball League 2-2, in which he was 0-2 down, and was left one win away from relegation. On Tuesday, on the Cyclone field .
While everyone in the Cerutti grocery store was consumed by the nerves and tension of the game, the Verde coach, Álvaro Castiñeira, seemed calm. With his hands in his pockets, he watched the final seconds, which gave his team the victory.
“It was really calm, it was really calm. It was calm basically because the team was responding. We had put the game in a place where we could win. And the team did what it had to do. Then, sometimes it's enough to win and sometimes not. I was calm because the team was competing in the place it needed to compete”, the Athens coach confessed to Mundo D.
“What gave me peace of mind is that we played the game we needed. And it's good that the team understands it. Then, obviously, some detail will put you ahead or not in the game. But that's not for me to decide. I can't do anything, that's going to be defined by the players. The game is defined by the players, for some detail, ”he added with his Castiñeira experience.
Athens has done it again . With his heart in his mouth, suffering, in a heart-stopping finale, he beat San Lorenzo 68-65 and tied the series for permanence in the National Basketball League 2-2, in which he was 0-2 down, and was left one win away from relegation. On Tuesday, on the Cyclone field .
While everyone in the Cerutti grocery store was consumed by the nerves and tension of the game, the Verde coach, Álvaro Castiñeira, seemed calm. With his hands in his pockets, he watched the final seconds, which gave his team the victory.
“It was really calm, it was really calm. It was calm basically because the team was responding. We had put the game in a place where we could win. And the team did what it had to do. Then, sometimes it's enough to win and sometimes not. I was calm because the team was competing in the place it needed to compete”, the Athens coach confessed to Mundo D.
“What gave me peace of mind is that we played the game we needed. And it's good that the team understands it. Then, obviously, some detail will put you ahead or not in the game. But that's not for me to decide. I can't do anything, that's going to be defined by the players. The game is defined by the players, for some detail, ”he added with his Castiñeira experience.
Athens beat San Lorenzo in the fourth game of the stay in the National Basketball League and everything is defined on Tuesday in Buenos Aires. (Facundo Luque / The Voice)
"What I do recognize in the players, which is also theirs, is to understand what we must play to win," he added.
-What did you like the most about the team?
-That. Understand the game we have to play. And that he never gave it up. When we were doing well and when we were not doing so well. We know we have to fight. It is not very pretty in sight (of people), but we must fight it. We must fight it. At some point we are going to hit two shots in a row and people get on the court. We don't have to stop doing the things we need to do to compete.
-You told me after the second game that they lost there, when they were 0-2 down in the series "we began to save ourselves from relegation." Are they closer now?
-Yes, I trusted this team, I knew we could do this. I thought we could do this. What happens is that the team had not responded. In the last quarter of the second game we started to do some of that. So, I began to feel that the team could do it. And the truth is that, regardless of how the series ends, hopefully it will be winning, the team showed up and that is very calming for me.
-What game will be on Tuesday?
I hope one similar to this one. Although the environment is going to be different, the people are not going to be in our favor, clearly, but we cannot lose sight of what we do. Surely they charge us some more foul, but we have to keep fighting. We must fight the party. And I think we can do that regardless of where we play. So what it seems to me that we have to do is our work and hopefully and hopefully, I fervently wish that it will be enough for us to win. But without that, we don't have a chance.
-How do you work these days, before the fifth game, against anxiety?
-You have to be calm, I lowered the pressure a lot in practice, we always end up with games, in training. You also have to play with pressure, let's say. One thing is anxiety, getting hysterical before games, and another thing is playing with pressure. They are going to have pressure, the truth is that you have to play with that. The ball weighs more for everyone. Some when they shoot the hoop it pikes twice and it comes out and others put it in, but regret, it weighs on everything, it's a lie that some play without pressure. So, what you have to learn is to play with pressure, have enough capacity to do that and all the boys have four days to become men.
Speaking of boys, the appearance of Octavio Sarmiento was very good.
-Yes, it was the X factor. Tactically they defend us a lot in the center of the field, they offer us shots from the corners. So we need to get a corner kick for the game to change. You have to find a balance between not playing what San Lorenzo wants, but you can't do much more if there are two players open to the corner. Octavio had a good night but Fabián (Jaimes), Matías (Stanic), Maxi (Araujo) scored triples from the corner, they offered us that and luckily Octavio punished them.
While everyone in the Cerutti grocery store was consumed by the nerves and tension of the game, the Verde coach, Álvaro Castiñeira, seemed calm. With his hands in his pockets, he watched the final seconds, which gave his team the victory.