Today, July 4, the men's National team of Ukraine played the fifth qualifying match for the 2023 World Cup against the team of North Macedonia in Skopje. Even before the match, the Macedonians had no chance to take a place higher than fourth. At the same time, our National team, in case of victory, overtook the Georgian team in terms of head-to-head meetings, provided that the Georgians lost in a parallel match against the Spanish National team. Although, the Ukrainians have already won a ticket to the second round of the tournament.

Our team obtained a very difficult victory (73:68), however, no one time it allowed its opponent to take the lead. Ainars Bagatskis' wards spent the first quarter extremely productively (35 points, 7 successful long shots out of 10). At the same time, Issuf Sanon and Ivan Tkachenko, rookies of "Prometey", succeeded in one successful shot attempt from the perimeter.

According to the results of the quarter, the Ukrainians reached a handicap of "+14", but then the opponent managed to level the game. Twice in the third quarter, North Macedonia cut its deficit to three points. The opponent of the Ukrainians conceded the same amount in the last minute (68:71), but 29 seconds before the siren, Svyatoslav Mykhailiuk, the most effective and efficient player of the match, made both free throws, setting the final score (24 points and 17 RE).

Issuf Sanon (10 points and 12 RE) became the second player of the national team according to these indicators. 8 points and 5 rebounds in the assets of Issuf's partner in "Prometey" Illia Sydorov. Ivan Tkachenko scored 6 points with two three-point shots. Viacheslav Petrov did not score points, but played less than 7 minutes.

In a parallel match, Georgia beat Spain in overtime (82:76), so our team remained in third place. With the Spaniards, they will play the final match of the group tournament on July 7 at 19:00 in Riga, which will determine the final allocation of places in Group G.