Serbia defeats Croatia and goes to the basketball semi-finals at Rio2016

Serbia won over Croatia and qualified for the semifinal in basketball at the Rio Olympics.

After the fall of Yugoslavia, the duels between Croatia and Serbia in any sports are considered to be matches of high risk. When the basketball is concerned this rivalry is even stronger. As online sportsbooks in Brazil report this is especially so because of the scandal in the 90’s when the Croatian players didn’t show up on the medal ceremony because of the (then) FR Yugoslavian selection which were also on the podium.

Yet the quarterfinal this year at the Rio Olympics wanted that these two teams meet again. In an absolutely exciting match the Serbian team won with 86:83 and qualified for the semifinal against Australia. They already played one match in Rio in which the Serbian team was terribly defeated.

Complains, complains…

Aleksandar Petrovic, coach of the Croatian team accused the referees for the defeat of the Croatian team. Although he stated that one of the reasons for losing the match was the terrible third quarter for the Croatians in which they got -20, he still concluded that this was due to the bad referring, as it was especially visible in the last 30 seconds of the match.

The semifinals in basketball at the Rio Olyimpics

The match between Serbia and Australia should offer much more excitement than the other semifinal between Spain and USA. Internet betting sites in Australia such as Sportsbet give more chances to Australia with odds of 1.56 while for the Serbians they are 2.44. Bet365 lowers this difference between the two teams giving the favorite role again to Australia but this time with betting odds of 1.71 against the Serbian 2.20.