Lassi Tuovi believes that Susijeng’s best World Cup match is yet to come.
Lassi Tuovi promises that Susijengi is ready for the lower final series starting on Thursday. Jenni Gastgivar
Finland won the World Cup for the third time.
Germany, the medal favorite, ran away to a 26-point victory, and pushed their own positions on the threshold of the upper final series.
Finland’s fate will be a lower final series with Venezuela and probably Cape Verde. The same chessboard also includes the host country Japan, but Susijengi has already played against it – and lost.
– 40 minutes was difficult for us. There were some good moments, but still the loss was too big, head coach Lassi Tuovi said.
– At the point when Germany played with more intensity, we lost the ball and lost in toughness and rebounds. It was clearly a better and more physical team.
The game days of the lower final series are Thursday (August 31) and Saturday (September 2). The order of the matches is still unknown at this stage, but it is assumed that Japan will play in the evening shifts of the Okinawa arena.
– The opponent puts more pressure on us. That intensity has derailed us. This block is now played for us. Now a new tournament starts, and there’s nothing to do but take two wins from it.
“It didn’t go as it should”
Finland went to the World Cup tournament seeking first a place in the upper final series and then a plane ticket to Manila, where the playoffs will be played between the eight best teams.
The end result is that Finland remains in the tournament’s worst positions 17–32.
Tuovi emphasizes that you have to learn something from losses too.
– We have to believe that every experience and every match improves the unity of the team. This didn’t go as planned. Now it has to be reset quickly, because two different teams will meet.
A place in the Olympic qualification?
In theory, Finland is still playing for a place in the Olympic qualifying tournament in Paris. The host country France, like Susijeng, also fell to the lower finals, but as the host, it is automatically included in the Olympics.
In addition to that, seven places are directly allocated in this World Cup tournament (two teams from the Americas, two from Europe and teams from Africa, Asia and Oceania).
Susijeng’s hopes are now left to the fact that it will make it to the 24-team further qualification (sharing four spots for the Olympics). The 16 best countries of this WC tournament, which did not automatically get a place in the final tournament in Paris, will be selected there.
In other words, the closer Finland’s ranking would be to the current maximum (17th place), the more likely an Olympic qualifying place is.
Of course, Susijeng’s statistics are already burdened by the ten-point loss to Japan. So Finland needs help from others to even be number one in its own continuation series.
– That continuation block is completely different. Now, in a way, we are playing with completely different things, Tuovi reminds.
– I strongly believe that this team has not shown what it is capable of at its best.