Inaugural winners Argentina to miss out on FIBA World Cup after 40 years

Argentina’s men’s basketball team have failed to qualify for the FIBA World Cup for the first time in 40 years. It was 1982 when the country didn’t qualify for the World Cup.

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The Argentinians lost to the Dominican Republic 75-79 to exit the qualification and lose out on the chance to qualify for the 2023 World Cup, set to be jointly hosted by Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia.

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Last edition, in 2019, the South American nation finished runners-up against Spain to collect their second runners-up medal.

They have won the World Cup only once in their history, which also happens to be the first-ever FIBA World Cup back in 1950, which was hosted in Argentina’s backyard.

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This is the fifth time that the Argentina men’s team will not be featuring in the World Cup. While this time it’s due to their inability to qualify, the team didn’t participate in the 1954 (Brazil), 1970 (erstwhile Yugoslavia), 1978 (Philippines), and 1982 (Colombia) editions.

Having just won three games in their final round of qualifying, Argentina finished fourth behind Canada, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela.

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"We didn't play well. We were off-target in attack, we had too many holes in defence and we didn't shut down their key players. We really screwed up," Argentina captain Facundo Campazzo said, as per Bein Sports.

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The World Cup is set to begin from 25th August and will go till 10th September, 2023.

Countries that have qualified for the tournament include Philippines, Japan, Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, China, Ivory Coast, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany Greece, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Serbia, Slovenia, South Sudan, Spain, USA, and Venezuela. 

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