MUNICH (Germany) - Back in FIBA EuroBasket 1979, Israel finished runners-up, earning the country's only medal at Europe's flagship basketball event. The mission for the upcoming decade is to try and get closer to those glory days.

Israel haven't missed a FIBA EuroBasket Final Round since 1991, but the 2000s and 2010s saw them stuck in the middle of the field. In 2003, they reached their only Quarter-Finals of the new millennium, and had two more Top 10 finishes in 2005 and 2015.

They couldn't take advantage of the home court in 2017 as one of the hosts of the Group Phase, finishing 21st with a 1-4 record. But signs of better days can be found in their recent successes in youth competitions, as Israel won back-to-back FIBA U20 European Championships in 2018 and 2019, with a second-place finish in 2017, as well. Add another gold and three silver medals in Division B competitions over the past six years, and it's easy to see how the excitement grows as the new era unfolds in Israeli basketball.

The recent two qualifying campaigns showed that the potential is real, with Israel defeating the likes of Serbia and Germany in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 European Qualifiers, and currently enjoying a 2-0 start to the FIBA EuroBasket 2021 Qualifiers.

FIBA