The 2006 national team reunited at the Meliá Castilla hotel to commemorate two decades of Spain's first of two world championships.
All members of the coaching staff (except one who was unable to attend) and the players from that unforgettable roster did not want to miss the gathering.
The roster was made up of iconic names in Spanish basketball such as: Pau Gasol, Rudy Fernández, Carlos Cabezas, Juan Carlos Navarro, Jose Manuel Calderón, Felipe Reyes, Carlos Jiménez, Sergio Rodríguez, Berni Rodríguez, Marc Gasol, Alex Mumbrú and Jorge Garbajosa.
All the players said they had great memories of the tournament. More than one claimed this was the best team they ever played on. Many confessed to having few basketball memories, and even those who did said they remembered many things upon walking through the celebration hallway (which featured clippings from all the tournament games).
At the event, the players also laughed while recalling anecdotes, though they were reluctant to share many of them. Pau Gasol's significant injury in the semifinal was highlighted, though as Marc Gasol said: "once we knew Pau wasn't going to play, the team was motivated," and the death of Pepu's father, the coach of that championship Spain team, the day before the final, which gave the victory a special significance.
Among the more amusing anecdotes they recalled, the Chacho confessed that before each game he would go to 7-Eleven to get ice cream, but looking back now they realized they had more pressure than they thought, or how apparently the national team considered bringing Japanese bidets that sprayed water back to Spain. An idea that seemed to appeal to the team but never came to fruition.
Pepu mentioned the now-mythical moment at Plaza de Castilla that everyone remembers. About that iconic BA-KET-BALL chant, he said the following: "it seems that's what stuck, I didn't know they were going to put us on a stage and give me a microphone." He closed with a reflection on the sport of basketball: "Basketball is a good place to be. You can have the fortune we had and win a World Championship, but you can also play, referee, cheer… It's a refuge we have to take care of."
Elisa Aguilar, president of the FEB, wanted to close the event with the following words: "You are not only responsible for the gold in 2006, but thanks to you there was a change of skin that transcended basketball and took root in the rest of Spanish sports and society."
To celebrate twenty years of this milestone in Spanish basketball, the FEB released a commemorative white shirt from that World Championship. The shirt features a patch with the number twenty and is available in the federation's official store.