The German national basketball team wants a medal at the upcoming European Championship. The team around Dennis Schröder is going into the upcoming tournament with clear goals and gladly accepts the role of favorite.
A tournament without a medal would be a clear disappointment! The German national basketball team made this clear just under a month before the start of the European Championship at their first meeting in Munich.
Experienced player Jo Voigtmann and superstar Franz Wagner appeared very self-confident at a press conference, but did not want to be provoked into a real declaration of war against the competition.
“It’s good to set goals,” said NBA star Franz Wagner at the meeting in a Munich hotel.
The German national basketball team wants a medal
He doesn’t feel any greater pressure due to the greater expectations, as he explained when asked by SPORT1: “It’s a bit like with the goals. It’s something that is assessed from the outside and also brought to the team. Overall, however, this should not have any influence on us and how we approach the games.
“The best way to play is when you have a good spirit and a good vibe in the team. We just have to focus on the moment we are in and everything else will go the way we want it to,” Wagner continued.
Basketball European Championship: Schröder announces gold as the goal
Captain Dennis Schröder, who sets a clear course and goal, was much more aggressive even before his departure to Munich.
On September 14, he wants to win gold with his team in the European Championship final in Riga, Latvia – “otherwise,” their leader said before the meeting of the provisional squad on Tuesday in Munich in the Braunschweiger Zeitung, “I don’t need to fly there at all.”
Schröder then had to start the European Championship title mission with a delay. The point guard arrived late at the meeting point: doping controllers visited him in the morning.
Not only Schröder expects great things from his team. The general public also has high expectations after the European Championship bronze, World Cup gold and fourth place at the Olympics.
“Nice that we are always in the conversation”
This new expectation is not a problem for Jo Voigtmann at all, as he explained when asked by SPORT1: “We all go in with the highest ambitions. Therefore, the expectations that we have of ourselves will never be below the expectations that anyone else has of us.”
“We put our own pressure on ourselves and really want to achieve something. That will always be in the foreground. No external pressure will change that,” Voigtmann continued.
The fact that the DBB selection, along with Serbia with NBA superstar Nikola Jokic, is considered one of the tournament favorites is recognition for the hard work of recent years, explained the Bayern star.
“It’s nice, of course, that we are always in the conversation when it comes to who the best teams are. I think we’ve earned that,” Voigtmann told SPORT1.
National coach Mumbrú wants to “compete for medals”
The Spaniard Álex Mumbrú, who will contest his first tournament as national coach after the departure of successful coach Gordon Herbert, is also aware of the expectations – and goals.
Of course, “we want to compete for medals,” he said on Tuesday, but first of all it is his “job to work hard and ensure that we will be successful.”
He wants to focus on a strong defense and quick build-up play.
Germany meets Doncic in preparation
The journey to the longed-for destination of Riga begins on Wednesday with a flight to the training camp in Málaga, Spain (until August 7).
After that, Mumbrú wants to reduce his provisional 16-man squad, which includes seven other world champions from 2023 in addition to Schröder, Franz Wagner and Voigtmann, by “one or two players”. The final squad will comprise twelve players.
Before the start of the European Championship on August 27 in Tampere, Finland, against Montenegro, the German team will play a total of six preparation games – including in Mannheim (August 10) against Slovenia with superstar Luka Doncic and at the Supercup in Munich (August 15 and 16), where the DBB selection could meet European Championship co-favorite Serbia with multiple NBA MVP Jokic in the final after the semi-final duel with Turkey.
DBB team negotiates bonuses – also for the women
After winning the World Cup title in 2023, there was dissatisfaction within the team, but now, Schröder said, the bonuses are “fair from our point of view” and the “appreciation” is right.
Remarkable: The negotiated sums also apply to women.
In the team, they want to ensure that the negotiated bonuses have to be paid out at the end of the tournament – preferably after the European Championship title.