President of the Russian Basketball Federation (RFB) Andrei Kirilenko told that the Russian national team does not have a very wide choice of opponents for friendly matches, and also commented on the match with the Tunisian team at the Friendship Cup.
The Russian national team defeated the Tunisian team in overtime in the Fonbet Friendship Cup match in Moscow on Friday with a score of 81:73. During the meeting, the hosts lost to their opponents with a difference of 9 points.
In 2022, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) suspended the Russian and Belarusian national teams from participation in competitions under the auspices of the organization. The ban on participation also applies at club level. The Russian national football team has been suspended from participation in tournaments under the auspices of FIFA and UEFA since 2022. In November, the Russians defeated the teams of Brunei (11:0) and Syria (4 :0) during friendly matches.
— After the frankly weak opponents of the Russian national football team, Brunei and Syria, Tunisia appears as a leading opponent. Will there be desire from the players?
– No time to fatten up now. Just like the football federation, we choose the opponents ready to play. We don’t have much choice. Of course, we would like to play against the strongest opponent, just like footballers would like to play against the French, Germans and Spaniards. But it turns out they are playing with Syria and Brunei. It doesn’t really depend on us. It’s great that we managed to form teams that play.
Will there be desire? I hope not. We do not organize any sort of rivalry between sports. I would love to see our football team play a match against a strong opponent. It’s stupid to deny obvious things. Of course, when they play Brunei, it’s not very interesting to watch, 11:0. Why, in fact, when we had an incident with Colombia, we didn’t play – there’s no point in winning with a difference of a hundred points. On the contrary, we do not want to make this story dominant. The task is to find teams by level. And even if they are at a lower level, we can test young people.
I repeat, there can be no rivalry with football. On the contrary, we are happy to have at least someone. I always want to watch the matches of the Russian national football team – I watched the match against Brunei and Syria. Yes, defeats, but first I want to see our players. Level of opponents? With Syria, even more or less, but not what is needed either. We are looking forward to the moment when we can play against strong teams,” Kirilenko told .
On Sunday, the Russian team will face the Libyan team in the Friendship Cup match. The match starts at 16:00 (Moscow time). Watch the live broadcast on the channel.
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Source : MatchTV
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