Italbasket, countdown kicks off for World Cup qualifiers
Exactly one month to go before the start of the 2027 World Basketball Championship qualifiers, which will be held for the third consecutive time in Asia, this time in Qatar.
The men’s national basketball team, in fact, will face its first game on Nov. 27 against Iceland, at the Nova Arena in Tortona (Alessandria), thus kicking off the path that the Azzurri of new coach Luca Banchi want to successfully complete to confirm its presence in the rainbow event.
The qualifying Group D, in addition to Italy and Iceland, also features Great Britain and Lithuania. The Azzurri, after the match with the Icelanders in Tortona, will play precisely in Lithuania on Nov. 30, in Great Britain on Feb. 27, 2026, at home against the British on March 2, in Iceland on July 2, and in front of a friendly audience against Lithuania on the 5th of the same month.
The Italian team will play in the first round of the qualifying round.
The top three in the group qualify for the second round, taking with them the points won in the first round and no longer meeting the teams they have already faced. In what will be the six-team qualifying Group J, the top three from Group C made up of Serbia, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Switzerland will join: whoever occupies the top three positions in the six-team group will go to the World Cup, the other three will be eliminated.
The men’s national basketball team at the World Cup has never won a medal at the World Cup in ten participations: the best result was in 1978, when in the Philippines the team coached by Giancarlo Primo came close to the bronze medal, losing the ‘finalina’ to Brazil 86-85. In the last two participations, in China in 2019 and in 2023 in the tournament played between the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia, the Azzurri finished 10th and 8th, respectively.
