The national team of Bulgaria suffered its first loss in the preliminary qualifiers for EuroBasket 2025
Bulgaria’s national men’s basketball team lost to Portugal 78:88 (20:21, 32:23, 12:23, 14:21) as a guest in Coimbra in a match of the third round in Group F of the preliminary qualifiers for the European Championship in 2025 in Latvia, Cyprus, Finland and Poland. The defeat was the first for the Bulgarians after the victories as the hosts of Cyprus and Romania in the previous matches. The Portuguese recorded a third successive success and topped the provisional standings alone, while Bulgaria remain in second place and will need to be successful by more than 10 points at home to this opponent in the last year.
In the other group match earlier today, Cyprus lost to hosts Romania 65:69 (19:19, 16:21, 13:14, 17:15) and recorded their third straight defeat. The Romanians achieved their first success and occupy the third place in the standings.
In Coimbra, coach Rosen Barchovski chose Deyan Karamfilov, Chavdar Kostov, Ivan Alipiev, Alex Simeonov and Emil Stoilov as the starting five.
Four consecutive triples by Ivan Alipiev, Chavdar Kostov, Alex Simeonov and Deyan Karamfilov gave Bulgaria the opportunity to lead 14:7 in the middle of the first Thursday. In the following minutes, the home team made up for their deficit and took a point lead after the first Thursday 21:20.
The Bulgarian nationals had the upper hand during this period, although they did not manage to break away by more than 3-4 points until the last second two minutes of the first half, when Evgeni Hadjirusev scored for 43:38. A little later, with an accurate shot from a distance, the naturalized American David Kravish made the final for the second part 52:44 for Bulgaria. In the last minutes of the first half, Alex Simeonov injured his ankle.
A weaker second half was the basis of the first defeat of the team led by Rosen Barchovski. With a run of 11:4 in the first four minutes after the break, the Portuguese got closer to the point – 55:56 and then, using their more aggressive play, led 67:59 with less than two minutes remaining in the third Thursday. The Bulgarians melted a little of their passive to 64:67 before the last part after Evgeni Hadjirusev’s triple and Konstantin Kostadinov’s basket.
The hosts again increased the difference at the beginning of the fourth Thursday to 71:64, but with a series of seven unanswered points, Bulgaria equalized at 71:71 six and a half minutes before the final. However, the Portuguese team still pulled ahead for 84:73 with three minutes remaining and until the end of the national team was unable to effectively counter the opponent. Due to an injury, the last Evgeni Hadjirusev cannot be included in the minutes.
Despite demonstrating more accurate three-point shooting, the Bulgarian basketball players retreated in mid-range shooting, made more mistakes, had problems in the organization of the game and admitted weaknesses in defense.
Chavdar Kostov led the way with 17 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists, and David Kravish finished with 14 points and 7 rebounds. Pavlin Ivanov, Alex Simeonov and Konstantin Kostadinov sold 8 points each.
For Portugal, Diogo Brito scored 19 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists, while Rafael Lisbois and Travante Williams scored 18 points each.
In the next round on November 13 (Monday), Bulgaria will host Cyprus in Nicosia, while Portugal host Romania in Coimbra.