Srdjan Radulovic: “The war in Ukraine affected our results”

In February, the Ukraine women’s basketball team will play the decisive qualifying matches for EuroBasket 2023, where the team only needs one win. Srdjan Radulovic, the coach of the Ukraine women’s national team, shared his 2023 expectations:

– Time has passed since the matches in November, what are the reasons for the unsuccessful results of the national team in those matches now?

– First of all, our results for November were influenced by the war in Ukraine and therefore the evolving situation. This affected the shape of the girls, their game. We had a very strong championship last year, most players represented the Ukrainian Super League and they had an excellent playing style. There was a completely different basketball picture this year.

The second point, a serious injury to Alina Yagupova, did not train for two weeks before the matches for the national team, and before the first match she had only two training sessions. These are the two main prerequisites.

I have nothing to blame the girls – they gave the maximum, they fought, but that day the opponents were stronger. This is basketball. It is clear that you can always play better, better, but you need to understand what the situation is right now and what position the girl is in.

– In a month, the national team of Ukraine will play the decisive qualifying matches for EuroBasket 2023. What is your mood for these matches?

– Of course, our mood is only two wins. We always play to win and now it will be necessary to do our best in these matches. We will look at the situation of the girls, what kind of squad we will have, because the same Shmatova was injured. But we still have to play just to win.