After being awakened at 5 AM to hear the news about their country being invaded, and then scrambling to find their family back home, Ukraine’s national team of basketball had to find the strength to take part in a qualifier for the World Cup in Spain on Thursday.
Despite some requests from players from Ukraine to delay it, the game continued as planned. The mentally exhausted Ukrainian team lost the game 88-74.
Artem Pustovyi, captain of Ukraine, stated that today was a difficult game for him. It’s difficult to play in such a situation with the resources we have at our disposal. We did our best. Everyone was focused on the game. Everyone was thinking about their families, their wives, and the children who were there. It’s an exciting day for us.”
Pustovyi stated that it was a frightening dream to wake up to hear about the events back home.
He said, “We don’t go to sleep at five in the morning because we have received so many messages and we are constantly reading news.” It is hard to believe that this is happening in our country. It is not a dream, and we are very sad about it. This is the reality. How do you prepare for this game? Our families stayed in Ukraine.”
Pustovyi also slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin with expletive-laden remarks, calling his actions “crazy”.
He advised other European countries to stay together, as Putin would not stop doing “this (expletive), now in Ukraine” and he would continue to do so to other European countries.
Ainars Bagatskis from Ukraine, who is also a coach, stated that it was difficult to talk about basketball in such a crazy environment.
He stated that there was no mental preparation on the part of the team. “Everyone was awake from 5 a.m. on the morning. “I’m proud to be a part of this team.”
Spanish fans and the home team loudly applauded Ukrainian players before and during the match. Bagatskis thanked Cordoba’s crowd for their support.
He said, “For moments I believe the crowd was more in our favor.”
Bagatskis stated that playing in spite of all the calls to put off the game was probably the best thing they could do in this situation.
“For the time being, it’s all we can do for this country. He said, “No more, no less.”
The scheduled return match against Spain in Kyiv was postponed.
Bagatskis refused to reveal where the team would be staying in the next days, saying that “I don’t want to tell”.
