Spain will qualify for EuroBasket 2025 if they beat Slovakia today
Santi Yusta’s incredible triple, which has gone around the world, allows the Spanish team to face today’s second game in three days against Slovakia in a very different way than if they had lost in Bratislava. Scariolo’s side know that with another win this afternoon at Paso Paco Pas they will secure qualification for EuroBasket 2025, a victory they would have been keen to avoid if they had lost on Friday. Spain does not want to miss the opportunity and hopes for the support of the Galician fans to carry out this second duel with the Central Europeans with much less difficulty than the first, in which they needed a miraculous basket from Justa and two overtimes (74-78). .
“We need continuity of defensive aggressiveness, energy and attitude, as we had in the first half of the match in Bratislava, to be able to set the tempo and be able to attack from the first seconds of possession,” the coach indicated yesterday. Sergio Scariolo, who hopes that his players will not become overconfident and who recalls the defeats of other “greats” (Germany, Greece, Slovenia) in their matches of recent days. “We will have to finish the job because this victory over Slovakia will ensure qualification for the European Championship. We have seen how difficult it is, especially at this stage of the season, to face any opponent. The defeats of top-level teams such as Germany, Greece and Slovenia demonstrated this very clearly,” he said.
Spain will face the absence of Xabi Lopez-Arostegui, who left the concentration due to strain in his left knee. Neither Oriol Pauli nor Mario Saint-Supery will be repeated; their place will be taken by three Josep Puerto, Rafa Villar and Jonathan Barreiro.
The latter awaits the Slovaks, who are hungry for revenge for missing out on the match they won on Friday. “They will come with a desire for revenge, but we are playing at home and I am sure the crowd will help us a lot. We will have to play very focused to get another victory and secure the right to participate in the EuroBasket,” said the Unicaja player.
The challenge for this young and renewed Spanish team is to shake off the doubts and nerves that engulfed them on Friday in Bratislava and which almost cost them an upset. It remains to be hoped that the less ordinary players, strained by responsibility three days ago, will play more confidently this time, helped by the support of the stands, as well as the fact that they now have some kind of safety net.
Since only the last player in each group was eliminated, a win for Spain would mathematically eliminate Slovakia (0–4), who with two games remaining could only equal Spain in wins (2) but lost their direct confrontations. Spain is now third (1-2), behind Latvia (3-0) and Belgium (2-1) and ahead of Slovakia (0-3).
EuroBasket 2025 will take place next summer (from August 27 to September 14) in Latvia, Poland, Cyprus and Finland.
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