The Georgian basketball team finished the tournament of Antibes and the will return to the homeland early in the morning from France, on 19 August. The apprentices of Igor Kokoshkov will held 4-days meeting in Tbillisi and the head coach of the team will name the list of that players, who will move to the final circle of preparation for the European Championship.
Georgian basketball players will go to Israel for the next test matches. They will have a sparing matches with the hosts on 26 and 28 August in Eilat and Haipash. Our team will play against Lithuania on 1st September and against Slovenia on 2 September.
The Georgian team did their best in the tournament of Antibes and beat Serbia 75:71, the Europe best team, they lost to France 71:86, but due to the numbers of conditions, it was not disturbed.
Davit Ustiashvili, the assistant of the head coach of Georgian team, made the following comment about the tournament of Antibes:
“We celebrated the historical victory against Serbia. As far as you know, this was a friendly match, but this victory is a very important for our team and for Georgia. As for France, they have very strong team and this match was very useful for us, because many of nuances appeared in defense.”
Manuchar Markoishvili, captain of Georgian national team, also commented about this match. He had a minor trauma during the matches against Serbia and France.
“We did our best against Serbia, the French were better prepared against us and we had a big problems in defense. I hope, this loss will be a learning experience for us and it will be a good turn at a preparatory stage against Slovenia”.
Vincent Collet, the head coach of France team: “We won today, but we should not forget, that Georgian team was tired after a hard match against Serbia. No one has the strength to play at one level after 2-days playing and we used this factor in the 2nd quarter. But, Georgia has a very good team and they will gain success at the European Championship.
I am satisfied by playing my boys, in spite of that 2 our leading players – Batumi and Azhinka was not playing. We will play against Spain in the next match and we have to use this match to prepare well for the Euro Basket.
Dato Manjavidze
