Georgia is in Group G with Spain, Ukraine and North Macedonia

The rivals of the Georgian national basketball team are known. Georgia’s opponents in the first group stage of the 2023 World Cup qualification tournament will be Spain, Ukraine and North Macedonia. These 4 teams will play 2-2 matches with each other and after a total of 6 rounds the 3 best will advance to the next stage. This became known today as a result of the draw held at the FIBA headquarters in Mies, Switzerland.

Along with the draw, the calendar was also revealed. Here is the schedule of the Georgian national team games:

November 21, 2021
Georgia-Ukraine

November 29, 2021
Spain-Georgia

February 24, 2022
Georgia-North Macedonia

February 27, 2022
North Macedonia-Georgia

July 1, 2022
Ukraine-Georgia

July 4, 2022
Georgia-Spain

The full results of the draw look like this:

Group A: Serbia, Belgium, Latvia, Slovakia

Group B: Greece, Turkey, Britain, Belarus

Group C: Slovenia, Croatia, Finland, Sweden

Group D: Germany, Poland, Estonia, Israel

Group E: France, Hungary, Portugal, Montenegro

Group F: Lithuania, Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria

Group G: Spain, Ukraine, Georgia, North Macedonia

Group H: Italy, Russia, Netherlands, Iceland

According to the format, the games in groups will be held in two rounds (home and away), after which the top 3 from each (24 teams in total) will advance to the second round. The principle of the team pairing in the second group stage has not been officially announced by FIBA, although the format will most likely be the previous one: Group A triple + Group B triple, Group C triple + Group D triple, Group E triple + Group F triple, Group G triple + Group H triple.

Accordingly, the best 3 teams from our group will form a new group with the best trio in Group H (Italy, Russia, Iceland, the Netherlands). In the new groups, teams that were previously in the same group will not play each other, the results shown in their meetings will be maintained. Accordingly, each team will have to play 2-2 matches (home and away) with 3 representatives of the other group. Suitably, each team will play 6 matches and eventually the top 3 teams in each group (12 in total) will qualify for the World Cup.

The next World Cup will be held from August 25 to September 10, 2023 in three countries – Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines.