Our men’s national team will enter another « bubble » tournament in February. In order to finish the pre-qualification tournament for the World Championship 2023, Luxembourg will play 2 more games in group B.
While our men’s team will face Kosovo on February 18th, the FLBB-squad will face Iceland on February 20th. Save the date! This time, the team around leading scorer and rebounder Clancy Rugg, will travel to Kosovo (Phristina) to play the 2 games.
The last « bubble » in November was one to remember as Luxembourg showed 2 very strong performances. In the first game, Iceland had a late run to beat Luxembourg 90:76. Atfer leading at the break, Iceland became stronger in the second half to take control of the game late. After the game, head-coach Ken Diederich and the players said that we played a good game, but against a professional team, you need to play a perfect game to grab a win.
This « prefect » game came 2 days later when Luxembourg was able to grab a historic win over the host Slovakia ( report of the game –> Luxembourg with a sensational win against Slovakia ) . Luxembourg played with full confidence in the second half, reached its goal of making 11 3-point-attempts and won the rebounding battle … after 40 hard fought minutes, the final score was 77:73 in favor of our team. The celebration videos of our team were shared all over the social media accounts. Earning a win over a full professional team is a difficult task and Luxembourg managed to earn a lot of respect in this game. It was also the confirmation for the good work over the last years when the national team was able to show a very fast and entertaining playing style and a collective group where everybody is involved and focused on the game (as it can be seen in the picture). Unfortunately, no fans were able to attend the game but many people followed the live-stream via internet to support team Luxembourg.
Standings in group B before the last 2 games:
1. Iceland (3 wins, 1 loss)
2. Slovakia (2 wins, 2 losses)
3. Kosovo (2 wins, 2 losses)
4. Luxembourg (1 win, 3 losses)
