On Wednesday-evening, Luxembourg’s men played the 4th and therefore last game of the second round of the pre-qualification tournament for the World Cup 2023. Against Sweden, the FLBB-squad had a good start but Sweden took control of the game early and finally won 94:58.
Starting 5:
Gutenkauf, Grün, Kovac, Vujakovic, Laurent
–> Clancy Rugg sat this game out, he left the game against Portugal with an injury at the end. Ivan Delgado also did not play for a second straight game so that Luxembourg was shorthanded entering this final game.
Luxembourg started well with some nice moves on the offensive end to force Sweden into a timeout (12:14 after 5 minutes). After a 3-pointer and a layup by Vujakovic, Luxembourg even had a 19:16 lead. Vujakovic scored 13 out of Luxembourg’s 19 first quarter points, Sweden led 24:19 after 10 minutes.
In the second quarter, Sweden raised the intensity in defense and the FLBB-squad only scored 11 points in this period so that Sweden took a 13-point lead into the break (43:30).
Sweden continued to build a lead in the second half in a game that slowly lost its intensity.
game stats –> boxscore
All in all, making the second round of this competition is clearly a success for our national team. While Portugal was an opponent that would have been possible to beat on a perfect night, Sweden was clearly on another level in this bubble.
Results in this competition:
Luxembourg – Portugal 74:83
Luxembourg – Sweden 76:129
Luxembourg – Portugal 74:80
Luxembourg – Sweden 58:94
