Tango Basket was absent from the World Cup for the first time in 40 years
The Dominican Republic won, despite trailing by 17 points 12 minutes before the end of the match that was held in the Argentine city of Mar del Plata.
Argentina, the champion of the first edition in 1950 at home, ranked fourth in Group E, with 20 points, behind Venezuela (20), the Dominicans (21) and Canada (23).
The failure to qualify is a major setback for a country that finished the last edition in 2019 in China, runner-up to world champion Spain, as well as qualifying for the last nine editions.
Argentina captain Facundo Campasso said, “We didn’t play well. We weren’t successful in attack, we had a lot of gaps in defense and we didn’t succeed in stopping their main pillars. We really failed.”
In the African qualifiers, the modest Cape Verde team, led by Real Madrid giants Walter Tavares (2.20m), booked the last card for the African continent, for the first time in its history, by defeating Ivory Coast 79-64.
In Europe, Georgia secured qualification for the first time despite losing at home to Iceland 80-77.
Belgium and Serbia are competing for the last 32 tickets to qualify for the finals, which will be held from August 25 to September 10.
While the Philippines and Japan automatically qualified as hosts, Indonesia will miss out on the finals because they failed to meet the FIBA standard of reaching the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup.
Here are the eligible countries:
Africa: Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Angola, South Sudan and Egypt.
Asia: the Philippines, Japan, Iran, New Zealand, Australia, Lebanon, Jordan and China.
The Americas: USA, Canada, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
Europe: Finland, Lithuania, Germany, Greece, Slovenia, France, Lithuania, Spain, Italy, Georgia and Montenegro.
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