BOBROV: “We are not thinking about the World Cup anymore, we are thinking about every next game”

Experienced striker of the Ukrainian national team, Vyacheslav Bobrov, shared his impressions of the away win (96:77) against the Dutch team in the 2023 World Cup qualifiers, and also talked about the settings for the encounter with Iceland.

– Slava, what are your impressions of the away match against the Netherlands?

– We are very happy with our result. I can say that the Netherlands is not an easy team. They play well and know how to fight on shields. We played well in defense against their leader, Yannick Franke, we closed. Overall we defended aggressive, controlled rebounds in the second half. All players who applied entered the site, young players gained significant experience. I want to note the very strong individual play of Ilya Sidorov. But the win is a collective result that we must forget now and put all our thoughts into the Iceland match.

– The composition of the national team has changed significantly compared to the EuroBasket. How did it affect this understanding?

“Mutual understanding has gone nowhere. We had time to prepare for the match, moreover, all the men were in the national team. Everyone knows how to work with Ainars, so there have been no major tangible changes to the workflow. Young players should come to the national team, play and gain experience.

– Our team does not have an ideal chance to reach the final. How does this affect the psychological state?

– We are not currently considering entering the World Cup. We play for the honor of our country first. Our war continues and we are grateful to our soldiers who defended Ukraine. We play for our people. As for the results, we have to win every game and only then, if we are lucky, we will have a chance to play in the World Cup. We made our situation worse by losing to Iceland. But even in EuroBasket we were wiped out before the tournament, so we need to confirm the status of the black horse that has already reached the European Championship playoffs.

– On the day of the match against the Netherlands, a big event took place in the Motherland – the liberation of Kherson. How did this affect the team’s pre-match mood?

– In the morning before the match, we all watched and discussed that this could happen that day, because the information appeared earlier. We were waiting for official confirmation and when that happened we had more power, we wanted to run forward. I wanted to show the opponent that we are ready to fight on the basketball court.

– Now every next match is the most important for us. What must be done to take revenge on Iceland?

– They shot a lot of open three-pointers in the first game, they were aggressive, they played good pick-n-roll and their leader Elvar Fridriksson gave us 27 points. We need to close this player, for this we have Vanya Tkachenko, Pavel Krutous, who can play against him personally. Plus, Icelanders have tall men who need to be stopped too. It is important for us to control the election, to run forward. If we run and get free throws, I think we have a chance to beat Iceland. Icelanders, of course, are not sweets: they will impose their game, in addition, they will try to escape. Experienced Slava Kravtsov and Sasha Lipovoy are back in our squad of young players who are not for the first time in the national team. I think the coach will flirt with anyone if possible. We need a result – we need to win more than 4 points and I think we can do it. We will focus on training, deploying their networks and deploying their defenses against duel. So all thoughts on the game, we need a victory because we have no choice but to continue the fight for access to the World Cup.