Things were on the line, but our team finally managed to save the game with their victory in Belgium, securing two matches before the end of their qualification for the final phase of the 2023 World Cup. was not combined with Serbia’s victory over Turkey, which also mathematically fixed the qualification, theoretically it would have two more opportunities to achieve a big goal.

All interest will now be limited to the capacity group, which will be assigned to the “white-blue” depending on the teams that have qualified.

In fact, however, this possibility would be more on paper than in reality, especially if in the last matches of the “windows” the participation of all our internationalists playing in the Euroleague teams was not ensured. Without them, there would have been nothing more than theoretical hopes of beating an armored Serbia in Athens or Latvia in Riga, two teams clearly stronger than our own “windows” team with long absences, which was clearly shown in last week in Heraklion, with -20 of our defeat by the Latvians.

Be that as it may, the goal is achieved, and the team can safely continue on their way to the final phase. The last two games in February will be procedural in nature, with all interest limited to which capacity group the Blues and Whites fall into depending on the teams that qualify. At the moment, a place out of 32 available has been reserved for 17 teams: Japan and the Philippines, which (along with Indonesia) are the hosts of the final stage, as well as Greece, Italy, Slovenia, France, Spain, Lithuania, Germany, Finland, Latvia, Canada, Lebanon, New Zealand, Australia, China and Ivory Coast. Giants like the US, Serbia and Argentina are just waiting to lock themselves in and qualifications are generally taken for granted. MundoBasket 2023 will run from August 25th to September 10th, and all games from the Quarterfinals to the Finals will take place in the massive 55,000 capacity ‘Philippine Arena’!