Vaggelis Liolios was overtaken by Panagiotis Dimitriou and we lost the game against Uruguay! I take it seriously because as long as there is a pending response to Andrei Vatutin for the availability of Dimitris Itoudis, who is already pulling hard with CSKA at this point, the national team bench can be available for so much…anyone!

By that I don’t mean Sotiris Manolopoulos, who is currently in charge anyway, but all sorts of potential candidates, with the exception of Gustavo Poget.

A lot has already been written for the sake of the new coach of the national soccer team, which I hope and wish will not turn out to be empty and useless: I mean, to last a long time and not to turn out to be a passer-by, since (according to Rehgel and Santos) he with the old Chatia …

As a transit center one thing! So this guy is a mix grill: soccer players and football, but also basketball!

Am I exaggerating as always, but not at all? Poget is literally the birthplace of basketball as his hat is orange instead of black and white!

The legend of the “Indian”

His father, Washington Augusto Poget Carreras, was a basketball legend in Uruguay and South America: he was the notorious “Indio”, as he was known at the time. The Indian!

He was born in Montevideo on January 12, 1939, was 1.92 meters tall and died on June 16, 2007. He left behind two sons, one of whom honored him for his life and the other betrayed him … devoted to football!

Throughout his career, Washington Poget competed in the No. 7 jersey at Tabare, resulting in five championships (1060, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1968) while captaining the Uruguayan national team and making his debut at the age of 19. .

Poget competed with the Charruas at the 1960 Rome Olympics and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics (averaging 9.0 and 7.6 points, respectively), as well as the 1959 World Championships in Santiago, Chile, and the 1967 Montevideo Games.

He also finished as the top scorer at the 1963 South American Championship in Peru with 102 points and scored 22 in Uruguay’s 52-50 triumph over Brazil.

Behind Poget in this Uruguayan team that didn’t make it past seventh place were other standout players like Oscar Molia, Jorge Otero, Arturo Pineiro, Julio Gomez, Carlos Blixen, Milton Ska Hector Costa, Raul Mera, Sergio Mato, Ramiro Cortes, Nelson Cele, Luis García and Walter Marquez.

These were the ancestors of Esteban Batista (Panathinaikos 2014-2015), Jason Granger and Bruno Fitipaldo, who are the most prominent modern children of Uruguayan basketball.

Swollen ankles and paternal inheritance

Dubbed a basketball titan, Washington Poget is also known as El Sid because throughout his career he played with swollen ankles that he tried to protect with bandages!

The baton was taken over by one of his two sons, Marcelo, who played basketball, while Augusto opted for football, as did his grandson: the son of new national team coach Diego Poget, who also played for West Ham. Paphos, Cyprus and the small national teams of England.

The veteran midfielder of Grenoble, River Plate (Montevideo), Zaragoza, Chelsea and Tottenham may have followed in his father’s footsteps, but the basketball he played until he was 15 bores him.

This is logical thanks to the paternal lineage, but the case does not end here …

Basketball practice in Sunderland

During the two years 2013-15, while on the Sunderland bench, the former AEK manager used basketball as his main tool and indeed he had set up a field of hoops at the team’s facilities!

“Basketball can help a lot in football, especially in the area of ​​coverage, but unfortunately the sport isn’t very popular here in England.” he had said then and no epic, no work!

He later explained his reasoning to the Guardian as follows: “I watched our youth team in a cup game against Newcastle and I watched the kids score and how they moved on the pitch. So I figured everyone should play a little basketball to improve their game!”

Here is the continuation of his philosophy…

“When you play basketball, some movements become normal. I saw a full-back in the match who, when an opponent rolled over him, looked towards the goal. You can’t mark like that. You have to look at the opponent and the ball, like at basketball.

You’ll never see a basketball player run to his own basket to tag someone without looking over their shoulder. “These details help you because you need to mark in a specific way.”

The fear for the age of the players

After all that, Poget introduced basketball to the daily practice of the first Sunderland team, but he had an inner fear that he publicly voiced…

“Some of our players are old enough to start this process. I think when you grow up it’s not easy to learn to play differently, but certainly everyone can improve their game and especially some specific movements on the pitch.”

In fact, it was then that Poget met with Fabiulus Flurnoy, the Eagles coach at Newcastle, and invited him to visit and teach at Sunderland academies.

the isolation game and fortune

“I wanted him to come to training to teach us a few things. There are different dimensions of basketball that are also useful in football, for example the way you slow down a game. The analysis is similar because you use your strengths.” They show and mark opponents’ weaknesses to create a state of isolation (SS: isolation game).

After all that, I’m looking forward to Poget getting a job to see if he applies those basketball tactics to the national team…

I wonder if and to what extent players will be receptive and ready for such a groundbreaking (for their data) training adaptation.

Otherwise, if he sees them sulking at being out of their routine, Poget can call on Costas Fortounis for help when he returns from his injury.

Why Fortunis? However, as he is known to be very fond of basketball, he is friends with Vassilis Spanoulis and very often shows SEF his nose in Steph Curry and the Warriors t-shirts!