After suffering defeat on Friday in Zaragoza against Portugal, Spain's Men's National Team faces its second game of the second round of 2027 FIBA World Cup qualifying on Monday. Playing as co-leaders, they travel to Athens to face Greece, who sit last in the group and are on the verge of elimination. The high-tension match will be broadcast live (18:00, Teledeporte and Vamos).
Despite Friday's loss in Zaragoza to Portugal (89-95), Spain remains atop the group with 5 wins in 7 games, though now tied with Ukraine. In any case, Monday's game at the Telekom Center Athens (OAKA) against Greece (18:00, Teledeporte and Vamos) is expected to be doubly complicated because the Greeks, who also fell on Friday in their visit to Ukraine in Riga, currently sit last in Group I standings and are on the brink of elimination. So it will be much more than a clash between first and last place, with the stands hotter than ever.
The most recent precedents of the countless matchups between Spain and Greece date back to the 2024 Olympic Games and the EuroBasket a year ago in Cyprus. Spain won the Olympic clash (84-77) and Greece won the European championship (86-90).
Spain arrived in Athens with the bitter taste of defeat against the Portuguese, but also with the conviction that this will be a different game, under different circumstances, and that the team has the capacity to react. For this important fixture, head coach Chus Mateo has called up the following 12 players: Darío Brizuela, Álvaro Cárdenas, Alberto Díaz, Hugo González, Juancho Hernangómez, Willy Hernangómez, Sergio de Larrea, Aday Mara, Baba Miller, Joel Parra, Jaime Pradilla, and Mario Saint-Supéry.
Chus Mateo: "Our reaction must be positive"
"It will be complicated because we both need to win," Chus Mateo assessed. "We come off two losses and although we're still leading the group, we know things are getting tougher and obviously they also need to win, playing at home." "For us, winning would feel good, knowing we're closer to our objective." He also noted that "when we started this journey we already knew it was a difficult challenge and we accepted it as such. The start was fantastic, couldn't have been better, and then came those two stumbles that make you realize our reaction must be positive if we've really learned the lesson we want to learn, we want to take advantage of everything that happens to us along the way, and if the not-so-positive helps us grow, so be it." "I've never lost sight of the fact that we're not qualified, I never thought that with 5-0 there was still much ahead," the head coach added. "Now we're in the second half and working toward qualification, day by day, game by game."
Juancho Hernangómez: "We come with hunger to win"
For Juancho Hernangómez, "it will be a special game because I play at home, but different because I play in red. It will be important because we both need to win and we come with hunger to win." He also values that "this is a long journey." Regarding Greece, he considers them a team "with a lot of talent, they have physicality, good players, Calathes controls the game... and besides they play at home and under pressure because they have to win no matter what. It's going to be difficult."