Luxembourg will play on the road in Romania on Thursday (18:00 Lux time) to start the 2027 World Cup Pre-Qualifiers. In a group of (only) 3 teams, the opponents are Romania and Norway. In total, 10 teams are part of the pre-qualifiers, 4 teams will advance to the next round, the 3 group winners and the best ranked second placed team.
National team head coach Ken Diederich expects Norway to be the strongest team in our group, at least on paper because the team „plays a fast playing style and is tall at the same time, a strong mix ».
Diederich notes that the national team is entering a small rebuild to add younger players to the team while some of the key players are still clearly the heart and soul of the team at the moment. „We want to integrate new players and try to help these players take over responsibility. The team spirit is great as it has always been with these guys and they are on the same page. »
In Romania, Luxembourg faces a difficult challenge: „Romania is the favorite, they have tall players and play extremely physical, we need to match that. Our goal is to play our style of basketball and surprise Romania. » Just like for every game, Diederich has some clear goals that he wants his team to reach in order to have a chance. „We know that they are taller, we can not lose the rebounding battle by more than 8, that is a first goal. And then, hitting 10 threes combined with having less than 10 turnovers could be the right mix to make this an interesting game. »
The last road game in Romania has been played in June of 2022, Luxembourg lost that game 67:78.
Out of the 16 players that were part of the provivisional roster, the following 12 players will travel to Romania with team Luxembourg:
Carreira Kreps Malcolm
Delgado Ivan
Gutenkauf Philippe
Grün Thomas
Jack Christopher
Kuresevic Ivor
Kalmes Joe
Kovac Ben
Laurent Alex
Logelin Max
Rugg Clancy
Vujakovic Oliver
Note: While Davy Rocha and Yannick Verbeelen both missed a large part of the preparation (sickness), Dorian Grosber suffered an injury and will need to rest for at least 2-3 months.
