{"id":302,"date":"2026-02-26T22:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/razak.com.ng\/?p=302"},"modified":"2026-02-26T22:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T22:39:17","slug":"the-spanish-basketball-team-wants-to-consolidate-itself-against-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/?p=302","title":{"rendered":"The Spanish basketball team wants to consolidate itself against Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Spanish basketball team<\/strong>in its new cycle with Chus Mateo <\/strong>As a coach, he will try to consolidate his leadership in Group A in the qualifying phase for the 2027 World Cup in Qatar, which will lead the national team to play two games against Ukraine, the first of which this Friday in Riga (Latvia).<\/p>\n

After his great debut in the first window with wins against Denmark and Georgia<\/strong>, The Family<\/em> will look to extend their lead against Ukraine, who also won both of their matches in November.<\/p>\n

In a list that went from 16 players to 14, with the departure of Eric Vila and Miguel Gonz\u00e1lez, Chus Mateo will have to choose two discards for the call for this first match in Riga, the scene chosen in light of the war conflict that is currently affecting the Ukrainian team, reports Efe.<\/p>\n

The team, with the base Jaime Fern\u00e1ndez as great captain<\/strong>is made up of \u00c1lvaro C\u00e1rdenas, Llu\u00eds Costa, Fran Guerra, Francis Alonso, Pep Busquets, Sergi Mart\u00ednez, Santi Yusta<\/strong>Alex Reyes, Pierre Oriola, Ferr\u00e1n Bassas, Oriol Paul\u00ed, Izan Almansa and Issac Nogu\u00e9s.<\/p>\n

Oriola is the big news in this call. The power forward returns five years after his last game with ‘La Familia’. In the run-up, he spoke with TVE about his return and admitted that he was not expecting Chus Mateo’s call. <\/p>\n

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\t\tOriola returns to ‘La Familia’ after five years since his last game<\/span><\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n

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A powerful rival<\/h2>\n

The team has worked this week in Guadalajara to be a “recognizable” team, with a “commitment front and back” that “does not break at any time,” in Mateo’s words.<\/p>\n

The coach has been optimistic: “We have a very committed team with a lot of enthusiasm, so we can go very far<\/strong>“. <\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t00.54 min<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\t\tFull transcript<\/span>
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\t\t\t\tWe will see it on Teledeporte starting at 2 in the afternoon\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tand snow has dawned on the family today in Latvia, a country where tomorrow their\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tmatch against Ukraine as it could not be played in this country due to the conflict\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\twarlike\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tSecond window of the FIBA \u200b\u200bor what is the same, a new opportunity to\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tSpain to achieve its goal, qualify for the 2027 World Cup\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tSpain, the family that will train today at two in the afternoon at the same time on\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\ttomorrow’s game in a team led by Chus Mateo that does not count\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\twith no Euroleague or NBA player, but he does have a team full of\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tcommitment and eagerness to work\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tIt is an important window.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tWe have a team…\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\twho represents Spanish basketball very well, who is super committed and\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tWith that enthusiasm I believe we can go very far\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tWe know that Ukraine is perhaps a little bit better, let’s put it that way, too\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tthey won the first two in November\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tand we have to play very well and very solid to be able to win it\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\t\tChus Mateo, before facing Ukraine: “We can go very far”<\/span><\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n

The coach, for his part, defined Ukraine as a \u201cvery physical\u201d and \u201cfighting\u201d team that has a good defense. \u201cIt is a very powerful team, which runs the field well, even with big people<\/strong>and that fights until the end,\u201d added the coach.<\/p>\n

Oleksandr Kovliar<\/strong>shooting guard for Buducnost and former player for Obradoiro, will be one of the Ukrainian team’s main offensive assets, as he is the top scorer in this phase with 29.5 points per game.<\/p>\n

After this third day, the Spanish team will play again against Ukraine next March 2 in Oviedo<\/strong>. The three best teams in each group (of four teams) will advance to the second and final qualifying phase with results.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spanish basketball teamin its new cycle with Chus Mateo As a coach, he will<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/razak.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}