Tahir Bakhshiyev: "I wouldn't call our group difficult, the level of the teams is appropriate"

The group in which the Azerbaijani national basketball team is in the preliminary qualifying round of the 2029 European Championship is not difficult.

Tahir Bakhshiyev, the head coach of the Azerbaijani national basketball team, made a statement to "Report" about this.

He evaluated the opponents that the team will face in the continental championship:

"I wouldn't call our group difficult. The level of the teams is appropriate. I would distinguish the North Macedonian team relatively. Because they have higher-level basketball players in their squad. We are well aware of the Irish team. We played against them last year, although we lost. But it is possible to beat the Irish. We will try to play better this time. When I was a basketball player, I played against Luxembourg about 15 years ago. Of course, a long time has passed. You can feel some development in their basketball."

The expert cited the ongoing European Championship as an example and said that the matches in basketball competitions are held in a tense competitive environment:

"When you watch the matches in the European Championship, you see that there are no favorite teams, the teams show their true strength on the court. We can give the example of Finland's victory over Serbia and Georgia's victory over France. Therefore, we will try to fight to the end with our opponents."

It should be noted that the team will play its first game on November 27 against North Macedonia. 3 days later, the third match of our team, which will host Luxembourg at home, will be on February 27, 2026. The team's opponent will be Ireland.

Let's remind that the teams will meet in groups in a round-robin system (each with each other) in a home and away format. In group A, each team will play 6 games, and in groups B and C, each team will play 4 games. The winner of each group (the team that takes the 1st place) will directly advance to the next stage.

One of the best second places can also advance additionally (according to FIBA's general regulations, for the balance of the groups). Since there are 4 teams in group A, the results of the games with the team that took the last place will not be taken into account in the fight for the best group runner-up.