Orenga resigns as Spain coach

Juan Orenga (ESP). Iran vs Spain, 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, Granada (Spain), Day 1, Group phase

MADRID (FIBA Basketball World Cup) - Juan Antonio Orenga has called time on his spell as the coach of Spain.

The 48-year-old has left the post after the host team of the FIBA Basketball World Cup suffered the most disappointing result by the country's golden generation following a Quarter-Final defeat to France.

Spain had been tipped to reach the Final. Instead, the USA, which had the youngest of the 24 teams at the Basketball World Cup, successfully defended the title they won in 2010.

"Juan Antonio Orenga has announced to the FEB (Spanish Basketball Federation) that he is stepping down as coach of the national team because he considers that the expected results at the World Cup have not been achieved and in doing so, he would like to ease the planning for the short-term and medium-term future of the national team," FEB said in a statement.

Orenga, who did steer an understrength Spanish team to a third-place finish at EuroBasket 2013 in Slovenia, said: "I want to thank the players, the coaching staff, president and all of the people that work in the federation for the joint work done in the last two years."

The coach offered additional comment to the Spanish sports paper, Marca.

"To have presented my resignation leaves me with a clear conscience," he said. "There was no need to extend this further. I think it's humble to do so. I've worked as best as I could have.

"The past few days have been very hard, I have analyzed many things.

"The most painful aspect has been the pressure I’ve put myself under to try to know where I went wrong.

"I've seen the game (65-52 defeat to France in Quarter-Finals) three times and I’ve decided not to see it again for a long time so that when I do, I can do so with a different perspective.

"It's clear that I made mistakes, otherwise, we would have won."

The setback is one of the biggest disappointments in the career of Spanish basketball icon, Pau Gasol.

The Most Valuable Player of the 2006 FIBA World Championship, Gasol made the All-Star Five at the FIBA Basketball World Cup.

He spoke about crashing out of the Basketball World Cup to Marca before Orenga's resignation.

"Whenever you don't achieve an aim you can consider it a failure, a disappointment, a defeat," said Gasol.

"Our dream was to reach the Final and to play against whoever, in this case it would have been the United States. 

"But it was not to be.

"We played a terrible game (against France) but we had options until the end. I thought that winning our first round games with a big-point margin could be a double-edged sword. In the end we played our worst game on our most important day."

FIBA