Completely surprisingly, Germany’s basketball players make a mistake in Bulgaria – qualification for the European Championship is unlikely to be in danger.
The German basketball players suffered their first defeat in the European Championship qualification. Almost without all the world champions, national coach Gordon Herbert’s team embarrassed themselves on Sunday in Bulgaria and completely surprisingly lost to the outsiders with 62:67 (27:28).
At the start of the qualification, the German Basketball Association team clearly won 85:61 against Montenegro in Ludwigsburg on Thursday.
In Bulgaria, which lost in Sweden on the first day of the match, the German team put in a very poor performance. The team only showed its potential in the first quarter and won the first ten minutes with a score of 19:7. But then Germany completely lost their rhythm and made a lot of easy mistakes. Bulgaria took advantage of this, turned the game around and caused a surprise.
Qualification still possible
However, Germany’s participation in the European Championship is still far from being threatened. The first three teams in the group of four will qualify for the European Championships in Finland, Latvia, Poland and Cyprus next year.
The qualification continues in November. Before that, the Olympic Games are coming up in Paris in the summer. Then Captain Dennis Schröder and Co. will be there again.
In Botevgrad, Bulgaria, Oscar da Silva was the best scorer in the German team with 15 points.