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Vitaliy Stepanovskyi. Source: FBU
The Basketball Federation of Ukraine (FBU) has terminated its cooperation with the head coach of the Ukrainian men's national team Vitaliy Stepanovskyi. The 43-year-old coach took over the national team in April 2023.
The decision came after FBU Executive Committee members' vote on December 28. The main reason for this was the unsatisfactory performance of the Ukrainian men's national team's during the qualification for EuroBasket 2025.
As a reminder, Ukraine's men's national team lost four opening games of the European Championship qualifying tournament - to Slovenia and Portugal in February and twice to Israel in November. Before the end of the qualification, our team will play two more matches in February, retaining a theoretical chance to reach EuroBasket. In total, under the leadership of Vitaliy Stepanovskyi, the national team has played eight official matches, winning two times. In the Olympic pre-qualification in Istanbul in August 2023, the national team defeated Bulgaria and Iceland but lost to Turkey and Croatia.
The name of the new head coach will be announced in the coming days. Ukraine will play the final matches of the EuroBasket 2025 qualifiers against Slovenia (February 21) and Portugal (February 24).
According to the qualification format, the three teams that will take the highest places in each group (with the exception of the groups that include the co-hosts of EuroBasket 2025 - Cyprus, Finland, Poland and Latvia) will advance to the final round. The host and two other top-ranked teams of the groups that include the host countries will be eligible to participate in EuroBasket.
Ukraine still has a chance to play in the European Championship next summer: to do so, it needs to win the remaining two games in February, while Israel, in turn, must win the match against Portugal.
Final matches of EuroBasket 2025 qualification:
February 21
Ukraine - Slovenia
Israel - Portugal
February 24
Israel - Slovenia
Portugal - Ukraine
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