No nerves, a few chicken feet and Maodo Lo

The weekend will see the start of the Basketball World Championship in China (31.8 - 15.9) - All games can be seen free at MagentaSport - . FCBB is providing five players: Captain Danilo Barthel, Maodo Lo and Paul Zipser will meet their new team-mate Mathias Lessort (France) in their first game playing for Germany this season, while Valdimir Lucic and Serbia will be among the candidates for the title.

Here are some of their impressions of the tournament as Danilo Barthel got in touch with us before the start of the World Cup:

Hello everyone,

We arrived well in our venue Shenzhen. I just came out of a mall, after dinner we went there with some guys - but nothing special, to be honest, I didn't buy anything.

Our hotel is really good, we even have single rooms this time. It's a good place to switch off and relax. Also the food in the hotel is outstanding. On the other hand, in our first hotel in Jiangmen, where we played against Australia, it was a bit wild. There were some chicken feet and such tasty things, that wasn't something for us. . . 😊

Of course, we have not seen much of China yet. All in all it is a bit more chaotic here than in Japan, where everything was super organized and really clean. English can hardly be spoken here, except by our supervisors, who sometimes even speak a little in German.  

But of course, we are not there to chat, but to play. I don't have a tingling feeling yet, we haven't been able to train in the arena either. The tension will probably come when it finally starts on Sunday. I haven't met Mathias (Lessort) yet since the French have arrived after us, like all the teams from our group. The Germans were the first, of course. 😊 😊

And what are our chances?

That's really hard to say, I think. It sounds trite, but I really think that on Sunday against France a lot depends on how we play that day. What is clear is that we MUST defeat the Dominican Republic and Jordan. Then we'll take a closer look at what's going on in the next round. Australia had a few player cancellations and so did the Canadians.

One task after the other, I'd say.

Of course it's good for us that Maodo is fit again and in the squad. Today (29.8) he trained again individually. That's good that he will be ready. Like all of us!

That's it for the beginning, keep your fingers crossed for us,

Greetings from China,

Yours,

Danilo Barthel

Photo credits: Offermann and Kröger