Basketball | Susijeng’s miracle victory made the players glow with happiness – a succinct summary from the hero

Valencia

Poland–Finland 88–89

Finland men’s national basketball team Susijengi did the trick. At its worst, Finland, which was in a losing position of up to 15 surfaces, roared ahead of Poland on the surface and grabbed it by the nose for a place in the follow-up games of the sport’s Olympic qualifying tournament in Valencia, Spain.

The match was a breathtaking show that kept the audience awake until the last second. Without its biggest star Lauri from Markka Finland, playing in the tournament, found heaps of new solvers and took home the victory after incredible phases.

A defender who played a great match Miro Little presented his analysis of the events concisely.

“We won the basketball game,” said Little, beaming with joy, after the match.

“The game ends when the buzzer sounds, and then Finland wins. That’s how basketball is, it’s a rollercoaster where you go up and down,” the Pirkkalan continued philosophically.

Mikael Jantunen is Finland’s game leader in this tournament and a guaranteed top man. He scored 20 points against Poland just like he did in the opener against the Bahamas.

In this struggle, another big man rose alongside Jantusen as a great hero, Alexander Madsen. Madsen bagged 18 points and raised Finland’s level to victory with two successful free throws in the final moments.

“That guy was pretty good, said the team captain Sasu Salin in the interview area when Madsen walked by.”

“I had a good day today, I hope it continues,” Madsen was content to state.

Madsen emphasized after the match that even though the readings looked bad at times, the game was already in Finland’s control quite well at the beginning. Finland was able to set the tempo and run fast attacks, but Poland hung in there and made the difference from the free throw line and Finland’s mistakes.

Faith did not waver.

“You can still clearly see from our team that when we have fun together, everyone has fun. That’s how it has to be, we have to stay together. Thus, we are able to challenge all teams.”

Captain Salin was not able to play in the opening match of the tournament, but now the man was packed up. He immediately did a guaranteed job on defense and threw in a few threes.

“I wasn’t bad either, but I can be better. It’s pretty sweet to share the field with those guys when the group starts to be pretty good in this gang of ours too. Even big men these days almost jump out of the hall.”

Despite the excitement, Salin admits that on Thursday the victory came above all through a fight.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be pretty basketball. Whoever wants more wins. Maybe it showed just as much” as the scoreboard shows.

“One thing that we never run out of is faith. That makes us the image of Susijeng and Finnish basketball: We do things together and we never give up,” adds Little.