heinnews’s David Hein is attending the U18 European Championship in Wroclaw, Poland and caught up with German center Bogdan Radosavljevic. They discussed Germany’s opening day victory, the team’s goals for the tournament and Bayern Munich’s new signings and thoughts for the season.
heinnews: Germany held on to beat Turkey 68-66 in their first game at the U18 European Championship. What are your thoughts on the victory?
Radosavljevic: What can I say? We played great. We played as a team. Rebounding was a big key. In the first half Turkey had seven offensive rebounds and in the second half they only had two. That was the reason we won.
heinnews: Germany are a good, solid unit that plays as a team. You have Serbia also in your group along with Finland, what do you want to accomplish?
Radosavljevic: Our first goal is to reach the top eight. And then I think the best six is our second goal. But we’ll see.
heinnews: There was big news on Thursday back home in Germany with Bayern Munich adding Sharrod Ford, Je’Kel Foster and Robin Benzing. What do you think of the moves?
Radosavljevic: It’s really great. It’s a great opportunity to play with the best players in Europe. It’s a good chance to learn something new and play great basketball. It’s gonna be a great season and I’m looking forward to it.
heinnews: Who are some of the teammates you are really looking forward to playing with and learning from this up-coming season?
Radosavljevic: All of the power forwards and centers because it’s my position. But all of the guys really, also the new players.
heinnews: What’s it like to have a big personality like Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness get behind the team and create something big?
Radosavljevic: That’s really great. He’s the only guy who can do something really big like this. And he also did it. He loves basketball. In the city of Munich, the first sport is football but the second sport is basketball. It’s really great to have something like this.