Today, on August 24, the men's basketball National team of Ukraine will play its first match of the second round of World Cup qualification. Ainars Bagatskis' team starts the crucial stage of qualification with 1 win and 3 losses, the Italians with 3 wins and 1 loss. This is reported by the website of the Basketball Federation of Ukraine.

The National team of Ukraine played three times against Italy in the finals of the European championships, winning once — at EuroBasket 2013, and losing twice (2005, 2017).

The day before, Ainars Bagatskis decided on the line-up for the game, which included 12 players. There are four Prometey players among them: Denys Lukashov, Illia Sydorov, Issuf Sanon and Ivan Tkachenko.

This is what the head coach of the Italians said before the match:

"We respect the national team of Ukraine for basketball reasons and not only. They played an excellent game against Slovenia, losing by a few points and, of course, a difficult match is waiting for us in Riga. But, first of all, I respect my players, who could have rested somewhere before the new season, but instead they get together to wear the shirt of the National team."

On the eve of the match, Ukrainian National team held an hour-long morning training session, where all 14 players who are in the team's camp took part.

The match between Ukraine and Italy will be broadcast by XSPORT TV channel (18:30).

As a reminder, Basketball Federation of Ukraine signed a partnership agreement with the Budinvest-Engineering company for the nearest qualification window for the 2023 Basketball World Cup.

The road construction company "Budinvest Engineering" became the title partner of the Ukrainian men's basketball team during the matches of the Ukrainian National team against Italy (August 24 in Riga) and Iceland (August 27 in Reykjavik).

"Budinvest Engineering" is also the general sponsor of BC "Prometey". For more than five years, the road construction company has been successfully building and repairing roads and is one of the leaders of the road construction market in our country. In addition to its main activity, the company supports the Armed Forces of Ukraine and develops Ukrainian sports. In particular, basketball and volleyball.