“The Ukrainian national team expects a difficult struggle at the qualification finish”, – WRITE: Sport.ua
On February six, sixteen matches throughout Europe will start the third, the final qualification window for women’s Eurobasket-2025. For our basketball players, it will include a visiting game with Portugal and nominally home duel against Northern Macedonia. At the moment, Ukraine continues to remain among the contenders for the cherished place in the final tournament. However, we will be frank, to complete the selection with a positive result of the team of Yevgeny Murzin will be very difficult.
Ukrainians with one victory in the asset and three defeats in the liability lost every chance of the final first place in the group G, which will be 99% of the Serbia national team (the talks are the current figure 4-0). So the only loophole for our girls is the attempt to take the second place and try to get to the future Eurobasket through the ranking of second places. But even here everything is very difficult. To begin with, blue and yellow need to eliminate home -15 in the game with Portugal, which we received on November 12 as early as 2023 in Riga and bypass the representatives of the Iberian Peninsula in the final tournament table of your quartet.
And then it will be even more difficult. Of the eight teams, which will take the second place in the An groups, only four will reach the final part of the continental championship. Currently, our basketball players are -34. And in six of the eight teams in the current form of this rating (before the start of the last qualifying window) the difference of the positive (from +8 to +89). Now it is impossible to say how many points it is necessary to play Ukraine, but it is obvious that the ward of Yevgeny Murzin requires two great victories this week. And not the fact that they will be enough.
In such an unpleasant situation we were largely driven by home defeat from Portugal in the second round of selection – 63:78. To some extent, the reason for this fiasco was the fact that this match Ukraine was conducted without Alina Yagupova. Without their leader, blue and yellow could not rebuild in the attack and with great difficulty scored points. The rivals of these problems were not forgiven.
Currently, Alina Yagupova will play against Portugal. There are also other team leaders like Victoria Balaban and Tatiana Yurkevichus. Among the losses are Veronica Lyubynets and Natalia Tyubik, who were on the list of players, but through injuries will miss the closest duels. In general, the extended composition of our team on the third game window looks like this:
Defenders: Darya Dubniuk (Polonia, Poland), Bohdan Laphan, Angelika Lyashko (both-“Frankivsk-Prykarpattya”), Victoria Balaban (“Neptunas”, Lithuania)
Forwards: Alina Yagupova (“Valencia”, Spain), Crystina Filevich (“Kiev-Basket”), Christina Kulesha (“New Zagreb”, Croatia), Vera Grymalyuk (“Shamarin”, Slovakia), Elena Boyko (“Egadi”, Italy) , Tatiana Jurkevichus (Brexia, Italy)
Central: Miriam Uro-Niley (“Non”, Switzerland), Eugene Putra (“Ruzhombek”, Slovakia)
In the future meeting, Ukrainians may well count on Victoria. The forces of two teams plus-minus are equal. However, will our national team be enough to block the fifteen -eyed defeat? This question is more difficult. And in general, I would like as much victory as possible, of course, if the team of Yevgeny Murzin really wants to cling to his chances of playing on the Eurobasket. However, it is too early to talk about it. Currently, you need to beat Portugal with the desired difference.
Sport.ua Forecast: Victory of the national team of Ukraine
Teams
Games
Victory
Defeat
Ball
Difference
Points
1. Serbia
4
4
335: 190
+145
8
2. Portugal
4
3
1
256: 229
+27
7
3. Ukraine
4
1
3
254: 288
-34
5
4. Northern Macedonia
4
4
204: 342
-138
4
February 6
Portugal – Ukraine
Serbia – Northern Macedonia