The Finnish avalanche is rushing to the Czech Republic! A lot of fans will come to Prague for Eurobasket
The beginning of September this year is not only the date when children and students return to school, but also marks the start of an important sporting event, part of which will also take place in our country. This time, the European Men’s Basketball Championship is being held in four different countries, namely in the Czech Republic, Georgia, Italy and Germany.
EuroBasket 2022, as the championship is called, is produced from September 1 to 18. The venues of the groups are four different cities, namely the basic Prague, Tbilisi, Milan and Cologne. The play-off, in which the four best teams from each of the six will advance, will take place in Berlin.
Among the 24 teams is the Czech one, which will want to add another one after the sixth place in 2019 and another success at the World Cup at the Olympics. However, the positive expectations have been partially overshadowed by complications in recent days.
The current biggest star of our basketball, Tomáš Satoranský, injured his ankle in a friendly match with the German national team on August 19, which he is trying to heal quickly. Other important players Vít Krejčí and Jaromír Bohačík had health problems.
In addition, the preparation of the results did not go as expected, the subsequent matches in the qualification for the world championship ended with losses of 60:95 against France and 79:82 against Hungary. Coach Ronen Ginzburg’s men will need to improve their defense and scoring at the European Championship.
The Slovenians became the European champions in 2017, who will therefore be in the position of defending the triumph. In the final, they defeated the Serbs, one of the upcoming group opponents of the Czechs in Prague’s O2 arena.
One of the biggest favorites is Spain, which won the World Cup in China three years ago. At the time, France took third place behind Argentina. On the contrary, the Russians, as the most successful nation in the European championships, mainly thanks to fourteen gold medals from the era of the Soviet Union, will be absent from the tournament. Due to the invasion of Ukraine, they were eliminated, and instead FIBA added Montenegro to Group A.
Basic groups of the 2022 EC in men’s basketball
Group A (Tbilisi): Montenegro, Georgia, Spain, Bulgaria, Belgium, Turkey
Group B (Cologne): Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France
Group C (Milan): Greece, Estonia, Ukraine, Great Britain, Italy, Croatia
Group D (Prague): Netherlands, Finland, Poland, Czechia, Israel, Serbia
Program of group matches of the Czech national team
Friday 9/2: Poland – Czechia (17:30)
Saturday 3 September: Czechia – Serbia (17:30)
Monday 5 September: Czechia – Netherlands (17:30)
Tuesday 6/9: Finland – Czechia (17:30)
Thursday 9/8: Czechia – Israel (17:30)
Source: EuroBasket 2022