Bronze Medal Game: France 74 Italy 68

France won the bronze medal in the 2004 U18 European Championship after beating Italy 74-68 in the game for 3rd place. France came really close to losing another game that seemed secured in its hands, but although Italy took the lead deep into the 4th quarter France had Johan Petro to save the day, and carry his team to a medal.

Semi-Final: Spain 95 Italy 78

For an appetizer we had a defensive game in the first of the Semi-Finals, but the second was the exact opposite.

In the first Turkey scored 57 and France only 55. In the second, Spain already had 50 points by half time. Spain got the 2nd ticket for the Final and will face Turkey for a gold-medal battle. For the second night in a row Spain faced almost no problems against one of the best teams in the games. After beating Russia by 20 points in the quarters, Spain continued to demolish its opponents, and tonight we witnessed an easy 17 point win over Italy.

Quarter-Final Report: Italy 75 Greece 74 (OT)

Yet another thriller, yet another overtime, second of the day and first of the quarter-finals.

Italy, coming from the 1st place in group A faced the 4th from group B – Greece. A classic battle between two very talented teams, decided after overtime in favour of the Italian side. The Italians came very close to losing and survived only thanks to two misses by Greece in the last possession of regulation and the last one of overtime.

An Old Head on Young Shoulders - Marco Belinelli

Marco Belinelli is oozing with confidence ahead of this month's European Under-18 Championships in Zaragoza, Spain.

And why not, considering his eye-popping performances earlier this year in qualifying which propelled the Azzurri into the showpiece tournament.