Scola’s Fifth World Cup

No, Luis Scola’s fairytale didn’t come entirely true. Scola didn’t manage to become World Champion with Argentina. It would’ve been so great. Though that didn’t happen, Scola managed to break record after record during the tournament, and after the semi final, he seemed well underway to become the Most Valuable Player of the tournament. Thanks to the 28 points by Scola in that same semi final against France, everything seemed possible for the Argentinian.

But it wasn’t meant to be. Argentina was beaten with 20 points, and Scola didn’t manage to score more than 8 points in the entire game.

Despite all that, Scola can look back at a very successful tournament. He was voted into the All-Star team, together with Marc Gasol, Ricky Rubio, Evan Fournier and Bogdan Bogdanovic.

Earlier in the tournament, Scola managed to become the second player on the All-Time scoring list of the World Cup, and he passed Juan Carlos Navarro as best scorer in the knock-out phase of the tournament. Navarro managed to rack up 213 points, Scola now has 214 points.

The final against Spain was Scola’s 41st game at a World Cup. Only the Brazilian center Ubiratan Pereira Maciel has played that many games at a World Cup. And Scola hasn’t announced his retirement yet, so who knows what can happen?

The last record Scola gathered was the number of won games at a World Cup. After Argentina won against France, Scola has 32 victories at a World Cup to his name. That’s something no one else has managed to achieve yet.