Henri Drell on Estonia's experience at EuroBasket: 'We showed the world that we can play against everybody' / News - Basketnews.com

Estonia's EuroBasket officially came to an end with the loss against Greece but the team showed that there's room for improvement in the future. One of the team's youngsters, Henri Drell, spoke to BasketNews about Estonian's experience at EuroBasket.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

Estonia lost the last game of Group C against Greece. Still, the team is leaving the tournament with the feeling that in the future when this core of young players will have more experience, they'll be able to become much more of a threat to the other European teams.

22-year-old forward Henri Drell is definitely a big part of the Estonian's national team future. The player spent a couple of years in Italy with Pesaro and is now continuing his career in the G League. In the second half of the past season, Drell joined the Windy City Bulls, the G League affiliate team of the Chicago Bulls. He averaged 5.3 points, 3 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game.

After the game against Greece, Drell spoke with BasketNews and shared his feelings about his first major competition with the Estonian national team.

"Although my time in Pesaro wasn't that good, I always love to return to Italy and the type of support that we received here from our fans was absolutely amazing", Drell told BasketNews. "They're special and it was great to see how many people followed us here".

Drell considers this a very positive experience for the Estonian national team, although a bit of regret remains for the two close games lost against Ukraine and Croatia that could have changed the destiny of this team and maybe allowed them to play in the knockout phase in Berlin.

"I'd say this was definitely a positive experience", Drell explained to BasketNews. "In my opinion, we would have deserved to have three wins, we lost against Ukraine by one point and against Croatia by two points, those losses were super hard for us and they still are to be honest".

"But we showed the world that whenever we're ready we can play against everybody, we're not scared, we don't fear the competition", Drell continued. "I think in those two close games against Croatia and Ukraine what we missed was the experience. We're a very young team and sometimes you can pay for the lack of experience. Against Ukraine, I think we also lost some focus from time to time".

"But in the end, it was more a matter of lack of experience, so moving forward I think we could be able to improve and return here with more experience and the ability to leave a mark", Drell concluded.

The presence of thousands of Estonian fans here in Milan has been one of the most positive aspects of group C. Estonia played all their games like they had the home factor and the Estonian fans also showed great support to the Ukrainian national team, especially in the game against Greece.

For a team with limited ambitions at this EuroBasket, Estonia and their fans were able to impress almost everybody with their qualities on the court and with their passion and pride off the court.

"I'm looking forward to seeing them in the future", Jaleen Smith told BasketNews after the game between Croatia and Estonia. "I didn't know they were such a basketball country, they created an amazing atmosphere. They're fearless, they want to prove so bad that they belong to this level. I believe that they can be really good moving forward".

Support BasketNews so we could make even better content.