That's bullshit. Check your facts: Pau Gasol wasn't playing in 2013 (his brother was, though). And that alleged "tanking" against Italy never existed outside the imagination of the haters. Had Spain won the game against Italy, their path to the final would have been actually easier: Lithuania (which lost against Serbia in the first round), and then Croatia. I suppose that losing a close game against Greece (which ended dead last in the group) in the very first day of the second round was just, how do I call that? Rehearsal?
Dumb spaniards, if they didn't tank those two games they would have ended first in the group and earned the easiest bracket (Ukraine and Lithuania). But it never ceases to amaze me how some people prefer to attribute extraordinary capabilities to Spain, instead of accepting that particular year we had a very inconsistent team led by a clown coach who couldn't make in-game adjustments if his life depended on it. And as such, we lost nearly every contested game. And the same would happen the next year.
Yeah, give all the bad karma you can find, but a good coach, and I'll gladly take the deal.
What I do remember is a mock game between France and Greece to avoid facing Spain in QF. That was a shame, you know.
