Without any foreigner Bandirma resisted dramatically at Bursaspor
The yesterday’s game between Bursaspor and Bandirma proved once again the importance of the homegrown players. Since there are some financial difficulties, Bandirma declared all their foreigners free to go and now is fighting in the Turkish league only with local players.
The first test came at Bursaspor and the result is not what was expected. After 3 quarters playing only with 7 Turkish youngsters with the age between 17-23, Bandirma was leading the host team with 4 points. In the last quarter, they were hammered with 25-11 and they lost the game with a decent margin in these circumstances: 88-78.
In the same time, Bursaspor entered the game having 5 experienced foreigners (Gian Clavell, Gerald Robinson, Gabriel Olsaseni, Chris Jones and Perry Jones III). So, everybody was expecting a huge blow. But even if the foreigners struggled a lot, spending on the court 165 minutes from a total of 200, they need the last stanza to overcome the Bandirma kids.
It is simply amazing how these Turkish youngs have found the strength and the energy to resist in front of much better opponents. This es the result of the Turkish strategy to invest in homegrown players during the last 2 years. First, they have reduced the number of foreigners who can play in the national league. This way the Turkish Federation created the room for many juniors who stepped on the court gaining experience game by game.
No matter if they are involved in Euroleague, Eurocup, Basketball Champions League or Fiba Europe Cup, in the domestic league all the Turkish clubs have to compete with only 5 foreigners. At the beginning of the rule, it was awkward to see all those unexperienced kids seeing 20 minutes per game, but now we can all appreciate a good idea. This has to be an example for some European countries where they don’t have any strategies for growing local players. Instead of bringing in every year a dozen of foreigner mercenaries, it’s recommendable by far to protect the national players, giving them more minutes than they deserve in order to develop their skills and potential.
Photo: Basketball Champions League
Gratian Cormos
