Spain will defend their title from EuroBasket 2022 starting next week, at EuroBasket 2025. They will play in Cyprus, one of the four host countries, debuting against Georgia on Thursday August 28. With six teams on each group and four advancing to round of 16, it is expected that they will go to knock-out stages. However, almost nobody thinks they will win this year...
Yesterday, FIBA published a survey among accredited media at EuroBasket asking who they think will win this year. An overwhelming majority, 73.1%, bet on Serbia, followed way behind by Germany with 10%.
Spain is, at least, included in the only six countries that received enough votes to get over 1%... but only 1.5% of reporters think Spain has some chances of winning. They are also sixth between the eleven nations that get some consideration in reaching the podium, with 13.8% chances, but the only category where they lead is "Which team will be the biggest disappointment", with 26.9% reporters thinking it will be "The Family", as they are known in Spain, followed way behind by Greece, 15.4%.
Why so many people is counting Spain out of EuroBasket 2025
This is not the only official source from FIBA that thinks Spain will sink: it is drowning in FIBA's own "Power Ranking", dropping from eighth place from the ranking two weeks ago, to eleventh place this week.
"After back-to-back defeats to France and a number of notable absentees from the lineup, we just had to do it [place Spain out of the top 10]. Sorry. But we had to", said Igor Curkovic from FIBA.
Spain has not performed well in the friendly matches, losing 78-73 in France last Saturday when at one point they were winning 16 points ahead. They've had an alarming series of injuries, like Eli Ndiaye, Alberto Abalde, as well as withdrawals like Sergio Llull, Álex Abrines, Usman Garuba and Lorenzo Brown, the latter two withdrawing due to personal reasons. And four players, Alberto Díaz, Santi Aldama, Darío Brizuela and Mario Saint-Supéry are having physical issues.
From 2022, Alberto Díaz, Willy and Juancho Hernangómez, López-Arostegui, Joel Parra, Darío Brizuela and Jaime Pradilla remain. It's hard to count Spain out before every European tournament, but with many of the 2022 players gone and without any other success since then (losing in World Cup 2023 without reaching quarter-finals and losing in group stage at Paris 2024), few think that they can make a recovery so fast.