New city, new problems: Slovenia is coming to Berlin much later than expected / News
Slovenia arrived in Berlin about 10 hours later than planned. But then a misunderstanding in the training facility caused the players to switch outside.
The Slovenian national team had to take a taxi to its first match of the EuroBasket 2022 group stage in Cologne against Lithuania, as the selected team bus did not arrive. With the two play-off teams now in Berlin, the current European champions are in trouble.
First, the problems started even before arriving in Berlin. The organizers scheduled a charter flight to Slovenia on Thursday at 9 am. The national team judged that it was still too early for the players to maintain sleep and rest, and decided not to fly.
Instead, Slovenia hoped to take a high-speed train to the capital of Germany at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. But it wasn’t that easy. The entire train management system at Cologne Central Station was down due to heavy rain the previous day, meaning no trains were able to arrive at the station.
As our BasketNews press team also experienced, many basketball fans and journalists had to look for additional options to travel to Berlin.
In the end, Slovenia took a flight from Cologne to Berlin and arrived at approximately 8 o’clock in the evening.
Funny, the problems didn’t stop there. When the team had to practice yesterday, there was an unfortunate misunderstanding in the training hall.
During the tournament, each team is assigned an attaché who guides the team through the various tournament venues and helps the players and coaching staff move around the city. But the Slovenian attache didn’t know where the locker rooms were in the training area, or he didn’t lead the team there, and the players had to change outside while watching France practice at the same time.
Teams can watch other teams practice through multiple windows outside and nothing stops them.
After all the problems, Slovenia will face Belgium today in the round of 16. The match is scheduled for 14:45 CET.