Our men’s national team has arrived in Kosovo on Monday. They will play the last 2 games of the pre-qualification tournament for the World Championship 2023. They will face Kosovo on Thursday (19:00) and Iceland on Saturday (16:00) to finish the tournament. For the second time over the last months, the team of head-coach Ken Diederich has entered a « bubble » because of the Covid-19-situation. Before Thursday’s game, the team will have several practices and film sessions in order to prepare for their 2 games.
At the press conference last Friday-evening, coach Diederich and 4 players (Vujakovic, Rugg, Kovac, Delgado) talked about the upcoming challenge and the expectations of team Luxembourg.
„The preparation has been challenging, we have some injured players, that’s why we only have 11 players available. Playing without Thomas Grün will be new for everybody, I have not coached a game in the national team without him. Furthermore, our professional players (Laurent and Kovac) will join the team in Kosovo, but that’s nothing new, we know how to handle the situation. The main thing is that we are hungry and ready to play », says Diederich, who wants to celebrate another win with the team. „The main problem in my eyes is that most of our players have not had a competitive game for 3 months, that is clearly a big challenge. »
„When one guy goes down, another guy needs to step up, that’s sport. », says Clancy Rugg about the situation regarding co-captain Thomas Grün. Rugg is the team’s leading socrer and rebounder and clearly one of the top players in the competition. The professional player of Basket Esch has a lot of confidence in the team. „We have grown as a group and expect to compete. »
„The last time we played together was in November, but we know each other and if we play well together, we can always realize a surprise », Vujakovic added. He has become of big part of the team and his role is growing game by game. „Against Kosovo, we want to take revenge after a loss at home. Obviously, we enter every game as the underdog, but with the right mindset and strong performances, one or even two victories are possible. The confidence in our group is there. »
Ben Kovac went on to say that Luxembourg „has shown over the last games that competing on this level is possible. We play as a group and that is our biggest advantage. We know what Ken expects from us and we will be ready to play. Our goal is clearly to win games, we will not be satisfied with one win in this group. A few years ago, nobody expected Luxembourg to win a game, but this situation has changed. We know that we are the underdog, but our mindset is clearly to win games when we play them. »
Video-Interview with Thomas Grün –> Video-interview with Thomas Grün before the national team games this week
Team Luxembourg’s roster:
Ben Kovac (Den Helder Suns, Netherlands)
Ivan Delgado (Etzella Ettelbruck)
Bob Melcher (Racing Luxembourg)
Philippe Gutenkauf (Etzella Ettelbruck)
Joe Kalmes (Musel Pikes)
Alex Laurent (Klosterneuburg, Austria)
Yannick Verbeelen (Sparta)
Oliver Vujakovic (Tirol, Austria)
Max Schmit (Heffingen)
Clancy Rugg (Basket Esch)
Gaetan Bernimont (Racing Luxembourg)
