Slovenia, Greece, Lithuania? The DBB team threatens a difficult preliminary round at the European Championship.
Luka Doncic? Maybe Giannis Antetokounmpo? Duels with big names could also come to world champion Germany at this year’s Eurobasket early. On Thursday (2:00 p.m.), captain Dennis Schröder, his national team colleagues and national coach àlex Mumbrú will find out at the draw of the preliminary round groups how difficult the path to the target next medal will become in summer (August 27 to September 14).
The selection of the German Basketball Federation (DBB), currently world ranking third party, is drawn in Riga such as defending champion Spain, Vice World Champion Serbia and France, winner of the silver medal at the Olympic “Home Games” in Paris. These heavyweights are only possible as an opponent from the round of 16.
“I would like to play in Riga so that we don’t have to travel so much,” Mumbrú told the SID. The background is that in addition to preliminary round games, the entire final round will also take place in the Latvian capital. The Spaniard knows that it will be “a hard European championship and all games will be complicated,” says Mumbrú, “that’s always the case with European Championships.”
The most difficult lot is in pot 2, Slovenia with the NBA superstar Doncic (Los Angeles Lakers) is a possible opponent. The Greeks around Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks) and the Lithuanians around Domantas Sabonis (Sacramento Kings) are also part of the second highest category.
The four hosts of the tournament were allowed to search for partner associations – as usual recently. This makes it clear that Latvia plays against Estonia in Riga (group A), Finland in Tampere (B) against Lithuania, Cyprus in Limassol (C) against Greece and Poland in Katowitz (D) against Iceland. For this purpose, it has already been determined that Slovenia will compete in Katowitz.
From the round of 16, the 42nd Eurobasket plays in the Xiaomi Arena in Riga. The German team had won the bronze medal with the final round in Berlin at the 2022 European Championship. A year later, the winning of the world championship title was achieved under Gordon Herbert. After the summer games in France last year, Mumbrú took over.