A couple of Japanese players try to keep Gilas big man Andray Blatche (1) from getting the rebound. Photo from Fiba.com
CHANGSHA CITY, China – Fereshteh Seyfinaji is a charming lady reporting for Iran television and website IRIB who has followed the Iranian basketball team in many big international events.
“Are you from the Philippines?” she asked when the Inquirer sat beside her at the working area for the press covering the Fiba Asia Championship here.
“Today we are friends, but tomorrow we will be fighting,” she said with a beautiful smile, her fists balled up mimicking a fighting stance as she was obviously referring to Gilas Pilipinas versus Iran at 11:45 p.m. on Monday.
Listening to her makes it certain that the Iranians are also basketball-crazy like the Filipinos, and that her national team will not take prisoners here.
She gamely agreed when told that this was already an interview, but declined to be taken a photo because of her religion.
“We weren’t in the Olympics the last time, and now we are hungry for that,” Seyfinaji said. “I love the Philippines, of course after Iran. I love your passion for the sport. This is our best chance to qualify again for the Olympics.”
Seyfinaji is such a basketball buff that she said she reads the Inquirer and INQUIRER.net to look for basketball stories, even answering some questions regarding some national team and PBA issues posted by what she said as the “Philippines’ No. 1 news agency.”
She had one question that this reporter didn’t have an answer to, though: “Is (Andray) Blatche overweight? I thought he would be very good coming over here. But I think he is not.”
Seyfinaji indeed knows her basketball, and the Philippines could only hope that she is wrong on her assessment of Blatche.