{"id":224813,"date":"2025-06-29T20:03:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T20:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/224813\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T20:03:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T20:03:16","slug":"drama-as-belgium-beat-spain-in-thriller-to-retain-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/224813\/","title":{"rendered":"Drama as Belgium beat Spain in thriller to retain title"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The official Women’s EuroBasket app<\/p>\n

Download Now<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

PIRAEUS (Greece) – Belgium claimed back-to-back FIBA Women’s EuroBasket titles with an astonishing and dramatic 67-65<\/a> comeback win against Spain in Piraeus. <\/p>\n

Trailing by 12 points with less than three minutes remaining, the Cats somehow launched a miracle rescue mission to dig out the most unlikely success. They finished the contest with a 14-0 burst to leave Spain feeling like they had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.<\/p>\n

Turning point<\/p>\n

It was 65-53 and looking like the game had gone, Belgium started to get some stops and make some shots again to set up a tense conclusion. When a step-back triple from Julie Allemand made it a one-shot game with just 90 seconds remaining the entire Arena were on the edge of their seats. <\/p>\n

Another bucket from the guard made it just a one-point game with 18 seconds to play and then came the real turning point. Semi-Final hero Antonia Delaere grabbed a steal from a Mariona Ortiz pass and made the lay-up that gave Belgium the lead with 5 seconds to go. It was one they would hang on to.<\/p>\n

TCL Player of the Game<\/p>\n

Emma Meesseman had her usual monstrous display for Belgium which had looked to be in vain. However, it proved to be the backbone of a famous and fabulous victory as she racked up a double-double of 16 pts and 11 rebounds, along with 7 assists , 5 steals and 2 blocks to show why she is one of the world’s best. <\/p>\n

Stats don’t lie<\/p>\n

Maybe sometimes stats do lie a little. Belgium won this amazing Final with bench scoring that was just one solitary basket. Meanwhile 11 steals felt like a huge number in this tight and nerve-shredding game. <\/p>\n

Bottom line<\/p>\n

Belgium showed the heart of champions and never gave up. It looked like their chance of a rare repeat had gone. Only two nations had ever defended their crown in the long and illustrious history of the tournament. A winning streak of 13 games across multiple editions under all the pressure is absolutely immense.<\/p>\n

Spain will take a long time to heal from this one as they pushed the self-destruct button. In the fullness of time, they might accept that with the team they had on the floor, a silver medal was still a fruitful return. It was not that they lost, it was the way that they lost that hurts. And, it will be a Final talked about for many years to come. <\/p>\n

They said<\/p>\n

FIBA<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The official Women’s EuroBasket app Download Now PIRAEUS (Greece) – Belgium claimed back-to-back FIBA Women’s EuroBasket titles with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-224813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114768445706914115","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}