Andy Van Vliet, one of the stars of the Belgian national team and former Bnei Herzliya forward who played in Israel between 2021-2023, spoke to the media ahead of Tuesday\u2019s critical game at 3pm against the Israel national team. <\/p>\n
Van Vliet spoke about his team\u2019s chances against Israel, \u201cIt will we a tough game. I think Israel has been playing a great tournament so far, they\u2019ve obviously been getting good results and you can tell that the team plays really well together, so it will be a tough matchup, but I\u2019m excited for it. I know my teammates are very excited for it as well, so we are going to give it 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n
The keys to the game, \u201cLike I said, it will be a really tough game and I think free throws have been something that\u2019s been bothering us. Against Iceland it helped us close the game out, so that\u2019s definitely something we got to focus on better, closing the game out with three throws, but with a team like Israel you can never count them out and you have to be focused 100% of the time with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also commented about Israel beating France, \u201cI\u2019m not surprised. Like I said it\u2019s a really good team with a lot of really good players, France is obviously also a great team, but it\u2019s the Eurobasket, a lot of things could happen. I wouldn\u2019t really call it an upset, I thought it was a good game, Israel played great and hopefully they don\u2019t play great against us on Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Vliet has bumped into plenty of familiar Israeli faces, \u201cIt\u2019s amazing. I spent time with Yoav Shamir at Herzliya and Mor Peretz as well, so great seeing those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did he give nightmares to some of the Israeli players as he was part of a Bnei Herzliya team that beat Hapoel Tel Aviv in the State Cup finals and knocked out Maccabi Tel Aviv in the league semifinals.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, That was a long time ago, this is years later, so obviously all of those players are doing really well individually and with there teams. I still follow the league a bit and who knows, maybe one day I\u2019ll be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
How about remembering the Belgium theme night in Israel, \u201cThat was my first year in Herzliya, it was fun. That was organized by Amit and Eldad, it was really nice of them to do. I remember winning the game because it was against Obasohan with Jerusalem. It\u2019s crazy you remember that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Andy Van Vliet, one of the stars of the Belgian national team and former Bnei Herzliya forward who played in Israel between 2021-2023, spoke to the media ahead of Tuesday\u2019s critical game at 3pm against the Israel national team. Van Vliet spoke about his team\u2019s chances against Israel, \u201cIt will we a tough game. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":154078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4487,397,29],"class_list":["post-154103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-land-hoops","tag-andy-van-vliet","tag-belgium","tag-israel","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n