Ukraine will start at EuroBasket 2022. What you need to know about the tournament and opponents of the blue and yellow
On Friday, September 2, the national team of Ukraine will start the European basketball championship. At 15:15, our team will meet with the Great Britain national team. Sport Arena presents a short guide to the European Championship.
Where will the tournament be held?
The 41st EuroBasket in history will be held in four countries – Georgia, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic, the final round – in Germany.
Initially, the tournament was supposed to take place last year, but due to the pandemic, it was postponed to 2022.
What is the format of the tournament
The 24 national teams that entered the EuroBasket final stadium will be divided into four groups of six teams each. According to the results of the round-robin tournament, the four best teams from each group advance to the playoffs. There, the teams start the fight from the 1/8 finals, and at each stage they will play one match. The 1/8 finals will have the following pairs: B2 – A3, C1 – D4, A1 – B4, D2 – C3, B1 – A4, C2 – D3, A2 – B3, D1 – C4. The playoff stadium will start on September 10.
Four national teams – Georgia, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic – made it to the final round of EuroBasket 2022 as hosts. Others – made their way through qualification.
How Ukraine played in the qualification
The blue-yellow team in the selection for EuroBasket-2022 started from the fourth stage of qualification. The Ukrainians were placed in the same group as Slovenia (current European champion), Hungary and Austria.
Our team beat the Austrians twice, and also exchanged victories with the Slovenians and Hungarians. In the end, with 10 points from six matches, the blue and yellow finished first in the group, ahead of Slovenia and Hungary in additional figures. By the way, Slovenians and Hungarians will also play at Eurobasket 2022.
Composition of EuroBasket-2022 groups
- Group A (Georgia): Belgium, Georgia, Turkey, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Spain.
- Group B (Germany): Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania.
- Group C (Italy): Italy, Great Britain, Greece, Croatia, Estonia, UKRAINE.
- Group D (Czech Republic): Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Czech Republic, Finland, Israel.
How Ukraine played at the European Championships
For the blue and yellow, the upcoming tournaments will be the ninth in history. At the same time, since 2011, our team has not missed a single EuroBasket. Ukraine failed to win the qualifying tournament five times, the last time was before the 2009 European Championship.
The best result of the blue-yellow team at the EuroBasket is the sixth place in 2013 in Slovenia. Then, in the first round, Ukraine defeated Belgium, Germany, Israel, and Great Britain, losing to France. In the second round, our team lost to Latvia and Lithuania, defeating Serbia, and due to additional indicators reached the quarterfinals. There, the blue-yellow team lost to Croatia, in the mini-tournament for the fifth-sixth places they beat Italy and lost to Slovenia.
It is interesting that Ukraine has never finished in the top ten at the tournament since EuroBasket 2013. And at the last tournament for her – in 2017 – she was 16th.
The results of the Ukrainian national team at EuroBasket
- 1997 – 13
- 2001 – 14
- 2003 – 14
- 2005 – 16
- 2011 – 17-20
- 2013 – 6
- 2015 – 22
- 2017 – 16
What you need to know about Ukrainian athletes at EuroBasket 2022
As is the case in such tournaments, the blue and yellow groups have three clear favorites – Italy, Greece and Croatia – and three teams that should be in contention for the fourth place in the playoffs. Of course, anything can happen, but the pre-start schedules look like that.
Italy is a two-time European champion. However, the last EuroBasket prize-winners the Italians visited was in 2003, winning bronze, and in the last two tournaments they finished in sixth place. The main star of the current Italian national team is Nico Mannion from Golden State. But Nicolo Melli can easily take on the role of leader.
Croatia, which won bronze twice – in 1993 and 1995 – is always among the favorites, but extremely rarely achieves great success: before the checkers – ninth and tenth place in the last two tournaments. Having a powerful team, currently in the team’s application Bogdanovich, Hezonja, Zubac, Saric, Jalin Smith, the Croats can shine, or they can traditionally perform below their capabilities.
The Greek national team has five medals at the European Championships, two of which are gold. At the last two EuroBaskets, the Greeks finished fifth and eighth, in the selection for the current one, they took second place, losing first place to Bosnia and Herzegovina. But this time the Greek team will be led by one of the best coaches, Dimitris Itoudis, and its European team will include one of the best basketball players in the world, Yannis Antetokounmpo.
The Estonian national team cannot boast of great achievements in the European arena. And in the selection, the Baltics took third place in their group, two points behind Italy and disqualified Russia, and ahead of North Macedonia only by additional indicators. But now in Estonia there is Mike Kalev-Kotsar, able to drag out an episode or a game at the right moment. Plus, in general, the young team is ready to surprise.
The Great Britain national team is going to its fourth European Championship. In the last year, in 2017, the British finished last in their group, losing all five matches, and 22nd overall. But in qualifying for EuroBasket 2022, Great Britain finished second in its group at the fourth stage, having scored the same number of points with France, and ahead of the teams of Montenegro and Germany.
The schedule of matches of the national team of Ukraine
- September 2. Ukraine – Great Britain. 15:15
- September 3. Estonia – Ukraine. 18:00
- September 5. Ukraine – Italy. 22:00
- September 6. Greece – Ukraine. 18:00
- September 8. Croatia – Ukraine. 15:15
Who else to watch at EuroBasket 2022
this time the tournament will feature a whole host of basketball stars. We talked about Antetokounmpo above. Nikola Jokic (Serbia), Luka Doncic (Slovenia), Furkan Korkmaz (Turkey) are performing at EuroBasket. And in general, basketball is rich in talent now, and every player and every European team can shoot any shot.
What does this mean, even if the representatives of Finland, which was previously considered “non-basketball”, have NBA player Lauri Markkanen in the team, the national team of this country was the first European team to win a ticket to Eurobasket 2022.
Where to watch EuroBasket 2022
In Ukraine, all matches of the country’s national team are shown live on the Xsport TV channel.
Betting on sports from the best bookmakers, register and collect bonuses.