"North Macedonia is a sufficiently experienced and strong team."
These words were said by Farrukh Mahmudov, Vice President of the Azerbaijan Basketball Federation (ABF), while talking about the game that the men's national team will play with North Macedonia today in the qualifying round of the 2027 European Championship.
According to him, North Macedonia is considered the main favorite of the group.
"It will be a difficult game for us, but we will fight to the end. Our other rivals in the group are Luxembourg and Ireland. We have chances to achieve good results in these games. It is difficult to say exactly how many points we will score in total now. Time will tell," he said in a statement to AZERTAC.
The federation official also spoke about the new member of the national team, Wesley Van Beck: "I have positive opinions about him. Wesley is a professional and experienced basketball player. I hope that he will quickly adapt to the team and be useful to our national team."
It should be noted that the North Macedonia-Azerbaijan match, which will be held in Skopje, will start at 22:00 Baku time.