đ The Week in International Sport
Monday March 16th: 3x3 basketball, rugby union in Italy and Fernando TatĂs Jr.
This year at Plot the Ball, Iâm using data to try and better understand the landscape of international team sport. For some background to this project â which Iâm calling âRank the Nationsâ â you can read my introductory post here.
In todayâs edition of The Week in International Sport:
đłđ± The Netherlands winning an international trophy in womenâs 3x3 basketball
đșđž The USA winning an international trophy in menâs 3x3 basketball
đ«đ· France winning a European title in menâs rugby union
đ Chart of the week: assessing Italyâs trajectory in menâs rugby union
âȘïž Highlight of the week: Fernando TatĂs Jr.âs WBC grand slam
đ A few other interesting things I learned
As a reminder: the team ratings used in this newsletter are on a zero-to-10 scale, and are calculated based on a nationâs performance in competitive fixtures in a given sport since the start of the 2022 calendar year. (For more detail, click here.)
đłđ± The Netherlands win the 2026 FIBA Womenâs 3x3 Champions Cup
3x3 basketball has been an Olympic sport since Tokyo in 2021. Over its first two Games, seven different nations have filled the eight slots in the âfinal fourâ of the womenâs tournament â with five different nations winning medals.
Having won gold in Tokyo and bronze in Paris, the USA (7.1) are the only country to have won multiple Olympic medals. Despite being the top-ranked nation in the sport, however, they were knocked out of this yearâs Champions Cup â an annual contest of top international teams â by Azerbaijan, who havenât yet played enough matches to qualify for a rating in this system. That should change soon: they have already qualified for the 2026 FIBA 3x3 World Cup, which is taking place in Poland in June.
The USAâs roster was made up of four current WNBA players, but they had to settle for a third-place finish over the weekend. They did manage to beat eventual Cup winners the Netherlands (6.2) in the group stages, by 21 points to 18; the Dutch team went on to comfortably beat Azerbaijan 21-12 in yesterdayâs final. They will head to Poland later this year having won three straight major tournaments: last year, they won both the 3x3 Europe Cup and the previous edition of the 3x3 World Cup.
đșđž The USA win the 2026 FIBA Menâs 3x3 Champions Cup
Serbia (6.5) and the Netherlands (6.0) were the two nations to go undefeated in the group stages of the menâs edition of this yearâs Champions Cup, but both ended up being knocked out in the semi-finals.
The USA (6.6) are yet to medal in menâs 3x3 basketball at the Olympics, but beat Spain in the Champions Cup final yesterday to claim the sportâs top overall rating. The next menâs 3x3 World Cup will take place alongside the womenâs later this year.
đ«đ· France win the 2026 Menâs Six Nations Championship
Victory wasnât secured until the final seconds of Saturdayâs final round, but France (7.3) have won another European title in menâs rugby union. The French are the sportâs top-rated nation since 2022, and started this Six Nations with a trio of big wins.
However, their final two games raised question marks over their play without the ball. After conceding a total of 34 points through three rounds, they shipped 50 in a Round 4 loss â and won their final game this weekend despite giving up 46 points at home.
đ Chart of the week: Are Italy finally on the up in menâs rugby union?
Italy lost their last Six Nations game this year, but I donât think their overall performance â two wins out of five â should be considered as another false dawn. In the history of the tournament, theyâve never had this good a five-year spell.
Since 2022, theyâve scored 36% of the total points in their Six Nations games. This stretch, remarkably, has immediately followed their poorest period since they joined the tournament: over the five years to 2021, that figure had fallen as low as 25%. Wales beat them in Cardiff on Saturday, but by the end of this yearâs tournament had slipped to a five-year point share of 35% themselves. For the first time in history, Italy arenât the weakest team in the menâs Six Nations by this measure.
âȘïž Highlight of the week: Fernando TatĂs Jr.âs WBC grand slam
Itâs the sounds of the World Baseball Classic that stay with me as much as the sights. Even before the knockout stages got underway on Friday, the competition had been pure joy and drama. The emotions have been addictive to consume vicariously.
At its best, international sport doesnât just replicate what competitors and fans know and love about their game; it introduces them to a completely new dynamic. As Shawn Spradling â whoâs covering the WBC on X â put it: itâs not been a âWorld Series atmosphereâ, but a âWorld Cup atmosphereâ. This is more true at the Dominican Republicâs games in Miami than anywhere else. Just watch a clip of Fernando TatĂs Jr. hitting a grand slam against the Netherlands â and listen to the crowd go wild.
You can watch a replay of this home run on Instagram here.
đ What else I learned last week
On Substack, Jeremias Engelmann broke down the impressive rookie season that Spain international Hugo GonzĂĄlez is having in the NBA. When the 20-year-old got off to a fast start, it was unclear if his statistical performance was sustainable. However, heâs continued to play winning basketball off the bench for the Boston Celtics: â[e]ven the metrics that tame the noise by pushing the ratings towards zeroâŠhave been overwhelmed by the strength of GonzĂĄlezâs on-off numbersâ.
For The Guardian, Jeff Rueter summarised how the USAâs womenâs soccer team are looking after winning the annual invitational SheBelieves Cup. Without the ball, the USWNT have been formidable: they have now gone 804 minutes without conceding. They have largely kept the action far away from their own goal, too; as Rueter notes, goalies Claudia Dickey and Phallon Tullis-Joyce âwerenât tested often this windowâ, facing only three shots on target in total over three games.
For ESPNCricinfo, Osman Samiuddin focused on one of the subplots of Indiaâs recent win over New Zealand in the final of the T20I cricket World Cup: their effective use of slower balls. As with so many stories about recent Indian cricketing successes, this is really a story about their star fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah. Samiuddin has the numbers: âNew Zealand collectively conceded 90 off their 31 pace-off deliveries. Bumrah conceded 12 off his 21.â
The next edition of the newsletter will be published on Monday March 23rd.
