The time came. Spain is in the Eurobasket semifinals and this Friday (4:30 p.m./TDP) will be measured to France To look for getting into the seventh final in its history in a clash that is already a classic. Both teams They have faced on twelve occasions in official competitions with a positive balance for the selection (66% of victories). And one of the players who will try to increase that percentage of triumphs is Raquel Carrera (Ourense, 2001). The Galician, whose participation was in check for an ankle injury, had a decisive role in the quarterfinals: 31 points, 8 rebounds and 2 assists They earned him closing the day matching the second best scorer of a Spanish in the competition. A doubly historical record, then The 19 free throws scored without failure From Ourense they also became the fourth best brand of the tournament.
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“We train them a lot,” The player says smiling about those 19 shots hours before the decisive duel against the galas. It was an unleashed room performance of the player who at 23 years He has left behind the adjective of 'promise' to become one of the key pieces of this gear. Although with people ten years older than her in the team she prefers to get away from the term 'veteran': “I think that at a certain age that promise is already going on (laughs). I think that when I have 19 -year -old people in the team I have passed to the intermediate stage. Of … neither veteran nor young ”.
A special reunion
He Pavilion of Peace and Friendship of El Piraeo He is verifying the consecration of the interior who left home being a teenager to fall on the Celtic quarry. And there, under the attentive care of many professionals, including Cristina Cantero (Assistant in the coaching staff of the Spanish bench), that talent grew. “It always helps to have someone you trust. Those four years in Celta were a stage of growth and continuing to mature. And now that we both find ourselves, I Being a more mature raquel career And she being that support of having that head, of helping us in what we can, is also very good, ”he says about the reunion with his mentor.
I think that at a certain age that promise is already happening (laughs). I think that having 19 year old people in the team I have passed to the intermediate stage. Of … neither veteran nor young
In his third Eurobasket The Galician is collecting the fruits of her work and averaging her best records to date (16 points and 4.8 rebounds per party). Therefore it is not surprising that there are comparisons with one of its referents, Emma Meesseman. And although he acknowledges that “It still remains ”to get there, The athlete explains that after a few months chaining some potholes, she is now a more tanned player: “The injuries have marked a long path, but I have always tried to recover 100% to get to what I played.”
With the calm that the experience gives, the interior prepares to do what fun to do, play basketball: “It is true that I am young, but I have played many endings and matches of this tension and it already gets better. At first I spent more nerves, more pressure, and now it is more peace of mind. It is an important game, but it is one more game. ” And whatever the result, after the confrontation of semifinals, the message of who her protector was in her stage in Celta will not be missing, Laura Alonso. The same one that calls her 'FILLA' and accompanied her in those beginnings in which professionalism was a dream that became a reality. Alonso herself that surely must be so amazed at what she is seeing as the rest of basketball fans, then Raquel Carrera's talent has no paragon.
The keys of the party
The French, current Olympic runner -ups, arrive at this tournament without six of the Paris Games components, including the WNBA Marine Johannes, Gabby Williams and Dominique Malonga. After suffering in the first game of the group stage before Türkiye (69-71) and led by Valeriane Ayayi, The galas turned to that false step and destroyed all the other opponents that crossed their way. The French are the team that leads practically all the statistical sections of the competition: exterior success (43.3%), assists (26,3) and efficiency (111,3). The galas have been on the Eurobasket podium on the last seven times consecutively, but They do not get a first place from the 2009 Latvia tournament.
