Georgia defeated North Macedonia this time in Skopje

After the victory with a big difference in Tbilisi on February 24, the Georgian national team convincingly defeated North Macedonia in Skopje and guaranteed qualifying for the second group stage of the World Cup. With this victory, Ilias Zouros booked a place among the 3 teams that will advance to the next stage from our group.

We would like to remind you that in Group G of the World Cup Qualifiers, Georgia is together with North Macedonia, Spain and Ukraine, and considering the current tournament situation, our team cannot be left out of the top three by any calculation. Our team has 3 victories out of 4 matches and there are 2 matches left: on July 1 in Ukraine and on July 4 in Tbilisi, Spain. The meeting of these teams scheduled for this tour in Ukraine has obviously been postponed due to the current events in this country. The Spanish team has all three wins, while the Ukrainians – only 1.

The Georgian team arrived in Skopje with a big loss: Tornike Shengelia, Beka Burjanadze, Aleksandre Phevadze and Giorgi Tsintsadze were injured. Add to that the young Georgians playing in the NBA, and obviously our team had a bigger loss than the North Macedonians. In addition, one of the leading players of the team, Nenad Dimitrevsky, joined the Balkans after the Tbilisi match, and this really tough player contributed 25 points to the hosts.

The Georgian national team eventually won with a difference of 14 points – 79:65, but this solid advantage has been achieved in the last period, in fact, in the decisive, final minutes. This clearly shows the training level of our team and the result of accurate tactics-calculations of the coaches. After being the leader for most of the first period, the hosts followed our team in the tail throughout the game, reducing the gap by 2-3 points and at any time they could have offered a surprise if not for Zouros’s defensive tactics. It is not new that the first demand and weapon of the coach of the Georgian national team is reliable protection and the Greek specialist speaks openly about it with everyone. 

The defense was the very reason for the success, at the expense of which the Georgian team finally defeated a rather awkward opponent in Skopje. Both on the perimeter and in the three-second zone, Georgian players limited the opponent as much as possible, and the stability in this component, despite the mistakes made in the attack, still yielded results.

Georgian national team, which was relying on just three legionnaires, was greatly assisted by the Super League players. There was an episode when all five players on the court were from the Georgian National Championship. Ilia Londaridze and Beka Bekauri were quite active and brought benefits to our team, but there were also those who assumed the functions of a leader: Olimpi player Kakha Jintcharadze held the best match in his national team career. He was very productive in the incomplete 28 minutes he was on the court, but he stood out especially in the last minutes, when he counted the 2 most important rebounds in the attack, managed to steal the ball and also scored free-throws.

Merab Bokolishvili, a member of Rustavi, who was celebrating his jubilee, was no less productive and useful. Bokolishvili scored 11 points against North Macedonia on his 30th birthday, was reliable in defense and managed 4 assists. Very important points were scored by another Super League player, a member of the Tbilisi State University team, Mikheil Berishvili, who also made 4 assists and stole the most – 4 balls in the match. Another Olympian, Givi Bakradze played only 5:35 minutes and in this short time he counted 2 rebounds and 2 assists so that he did not lose the ball.

Giorgi Shermadini became the most productive this time as well. It is true that “Sherminator” was not satisfied with 13 points himself, but 8 rebounds, 3 assists and one steal/block were enough to fix the highest (21) efficiency index in our team. The top-scorer again became Thad McFadden. The naturalized American point guard of the Georgian team gained 24 points and 5 assists. Duda Sanadze, who is in the process of recovering his form, spent 23 minutes on the court and scored the balls in quite key moments. He eventually accumulated 10 points, 4 rebounds and 1 steal.

The ticket to the second group stage was won by Spain together with Georgia. Spain is unbeaten and lags behind the team of Ilias Zouros in the standings due to the fact that it played fewer matches. The last, third window of the first qualifying round of the World Cup 2023 will be held in early July.

North Macedonia vs Georgia
Statistics: 65:79