After the victory against France. Belgium was the next one to be beaten by our German Basketballteam.
This was the plan, but the game was not finished after the regular 40 minutes, the Belgian team didn’t care about our plan and succeeded after overtime.
Nevertheless, we didn’t panic, since we still had two games to play, and plan B was to win the next two games 😉
After the game, Belgian and German fans were in good mood, and we made some photos together.
Then we lost the game against Great Britain, and we knew that the game against Israel on Monday was the last one for Germany.
The Belgian team had to play later also in the Tivoli Hall. For Belgium there was only one chance to reach the second round: Germany must win against Israel. Outside the arena we met some Belgium fans before the game started. They came early to support the German team. It was a nice picture, and the colors black-red-yellow and black-yellow-red were hardly to differenciate.
I gave one of our scarf „fans respect fans“ to a Belgium fan and we had a little conversation.
He gave me some of the also in Germany well known delicious „Belgische Waffeln“ which is a famous sweet cookie. Then he told me the story behind it: The media in Belgium didn’t believe in their team and the wrote: The Belgians are more popular because of the „Waffeln“ but not because of Basketball.
This was the reason why the fans offered this Belgian specialty, just to show that they believed in their team, more than the media at home.
We tasted the Waffeln and gave some to other German fans, and believe it or not – also the security guys allowed it to bring them into the arena, after I explained to them, that this was a gift from the Belgium fans.
Finally we succeeded winning the game, and this was very important for the Belgian team. When we left the Tivoli, the majority of the Belgians just arrived, and they all knew about the win and were happy and greeted us loudly „THANK YOU GERMANY, THANK YOU GERMANY“
Good luck Belgium – Thank you for the Waffeln, take care and we see us again sometime, somewhere. Fans respect fans – Let’s celebrate Basketball!
Correction: on Saturday, 14.September I received the following message from a Belgium friend, which I have posted here to correct my article:
„It was not the Belgian media, it was FIBA who did not believe in Belgium (it was on their site) „