This year, September brings a pleasant surprise under the arm. The Eurobasket, the most important tournament at the level of selections in European basketball, begins this Thursday and will travel through the Czech Republic, Georgia, Italy and Germany. The last edition was played five years ago, in 2017. Back then, Luka Doncic was just a child, an incipient promise who was already beginning to amaze everyone in the Real Madrid shirt. The Slovenian team, current champion, belonged at that time to Goran Dragic, MVP of the championship that year. Now it is Doncic who will lead and the veteran Dragic who will accompany in the attempt to defend the title. They are among the favourites, but the competition is enormous: Jokic's Serbia, Antetokounmpo's Greece, Gobert's France or Sabonis's Lithuania will have a lot to say.
The 24 teams that sealed their participation in the tournament are divided into four groups of six. These will face each other between September 1 and 8 in a single match, and the best four advance to the round of 16. The group A matches, in which Spain is, will be played in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Group B, which brings together two of the favourites, Slovenia and France, will be based in Cologne, Germany. Group C will play its matches in Milan, Italy. Here the Greece led by Antetokounmpo stands out. The last group, D, will be in Prague, Czech Republic, and it is the Serbian team that starts as favourites.
After the league, the qualifiers begin, with eight teams less in the race for gold. From this moment on, all matches will be played at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin, the German capital. The round of 16 will be played in a single game. They are divided into two days, September 10 and 11, in which four meetings will take place each day. In this second phase of the competition, those classified from group A will face each other with those from group B, while those from C and D will play each other. In this way, Spain could face Slovenia, France or Lithuania, three undesirable rivals. The quarterfinals will be on the 13th and 14th, the semifinals on the 16th and the third and fourth places, and the final on the 18th.
The Spanish team, for the first time in a long time, will not start as one of the main favorites for the title. It will find itself in group A with Montenegro, Turkey, Georgia, Belgium and Bulgaria. The strongest rival in the fight for the lead in this league is, without a doubt, Turkey, which has in its ranks Cedi Osman, Alperen Sengun and Furkan Korkmaz as the main figures. Those of Scariolo will debut against Bulgaria, on September 1 at 1:30 p.m. (Spanish time).
The 3 and 4 will play two games back to back, as they say in NBA jargon, against the host Georgia and Belgium. With a rest day in between, they play two consecutive games again on September 6 and 7 to close the group stage, against Montenegro and Turkey. Their fate in the knockout rounds will depend on their performance and the results of Group B, although it will be difficult to avoid the three 'bogeymen' or the hosts and also powerful Germany.
Among the most outstanding matches of the first phase of this Eurobasket are almost all of those from group B. The highlight is Slovenia-France, which will be played on September 7 at 5:15 p.m. The Slovenia-Lithuania will take place on the first day, day 1, also at 17:15. At the same time, on the 3rd, the France-Lithuania will be played. Outside this group, Greece's clashes with Italy (although they will be without Gallinari due to injury) and with Bogdanovic, Saric and Zubac's Croatia will be interesting.
