The German basketball heroes are back home and were welcomed by numerous fans in Frankfurt. Dennis Schröder & Co. still cannot really realise this great success.
“It’s amazing that we can experience this,” Dennis Schröder said happily on Monday when he and his team were welcomed by many basketball fans in Frankfurt. “We have worked very hard for this and earned it.” There is no doubt at all about this sentence, Germany was the best team of the tournament and completely deserved to win the gold medal against Serbia.
Even two days later, this success is still not really tangible. “I still haven’t realised it,” the captain admitted. “It’s crazy to really be the best in the world now.” And Franz Wagner, who had to miss the match due to injury but was fit again in time for the hot phase, sees it similarly: “I haven’t really realised it yet, it’s very difficult to put it into words.”
Finding words for this historic success is indeed difficult, what the German team achieved at the 2023 World Cup was too great. “Being here with all the people now, you start to understand it all a bit more. Before, we always just thought from game to game,” said national coach Gordon Herbert. “Last year against Spain we gave it away. I’m so happy for the players that we haven’t lost a game now.”
But then the medal did not come as a surprise to the architect of success. “For me it was not a surprise. We expected a medal, that was our goal. You have to be good and have a bit of luck, that was both the case,” said Herbert, who does not yet know exactly what he will do in the next few days. First up on Saturday is a TV date, after which he’ll probably head to Finland, where he spent almost his entire playing career in the 80s and 90s and where his sons Mikael and Daniel were born. “A bit in the sauna, a bit swimming – and ice fishing,” Herbert gave out the plan.
