Monday, September 4, 2023 – 6:39 PM
ABU DHABI, 4th September, 2020 (WAM) — With the curtain falling on the activities of the second round of the FIBA World Cup, the Canadian national team presented one of the big surprises in the tournament by defeating the defending champion, Spain, to prevent it from continuing its title defense journey.
The early exit of the Spanish national team was a new episode in the series of surprises that the tournament witnessed during the first and second rounds, which is expected to double the volume of excitement in the quarter-finals over the next two days, especially in light of the many changes witnessed in the title competition map in the current version, which is held in the Philippines and Japan. and Indonesia.
For example, only two of the teams that competed in the quarter-finals of the last World Cup 4 years ago in China will witness the quarter-finals in the current version, and the two teams are the Americans and the Serbians.
On the other hand, the Argentine national team, which reached the final of the last version and ranked second, was absent, as it failed in the qualifiers for the current World Cup, and the Czech and Polish teams were absent for the same reason, while the exit of the French team from the first round (group stage) in the current version was among the most prominent surprises, being He was among the strong favorites to win the title in the current edition.
Surprises also followed in the second round, with the exit of the defending champion Spain and Australia, to lose this edition of two of the teams that are also nominated to reach the final rounds, and even the Spanish national team was a candidate to win the title.
Among the surprises witnessed by the activities of the second round of the tournament as well, was the qualification of the Latvian national team to the quarter-finals, although it is playing the tournament for the first time, and the qualification of the Latvian and Canada national team from Group D in the second round came at the expense of two highly experienced teams, namely Spain and Brazil, where the Latvian national team defeated Both teams claim to be among the biggest upsets of the tournament so far.
And with the conclusion of the activities of the second round yesterday, the Lithuanian team achieved another big surprise by defeating the American team, the first candidate for the title, to take the American team second place in its group.
However, the US team’s decline to second place kept it away from facing the stubborn Serbian team, who finished second in Group A in the second round, which means postponing the confrontation between the US and Serbian teams to the final if they continue in the tournament.
And while the American team is going through a more easy test against the Italian team in the quarter-finals, the Serbian team will have to face the difficult challenge when it meets its Lithuanian counterpart in the other match tomorrow, especially since the former European champion Lithuania made distinguished performances in the tournament so far and imposed itself as a strong candidate to continue the march towards The next rounds being the only one with the German national team who achieved victory in all 5 matches he played in the tournament.
And with the same degree of difficulty, the Slovenian test will be for the Canadian team the day after tomorrow in an equal match for one of the two semi-final seats, especially since the Slovenian national team includes among its ranks the brilliant player Luka Doncic, the best scorer in the tournament so far.
The German national team, which has won all its five matches in the tournament so far, also meets Latvia in a confrontation fraught with danger, especially since the Latvian national team has achieved a great achievement so far and has nothing to lose in this match.
Awad Mukhtar / Ahmed Zahran / Zakaria Mohieldin
2023-09-04 14:39:00
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