According to the 25-year-old, who has played for Spanish side Ourense Baloncesto since 2024/25, this goal has been clear to the Portuguese team since qualifying for the final stage, Portugal's fourth, after 1951, 2007, and 2011.

"As a group, and from the moment we qualified, we established that we wanted to qualify [for the round of 16], and I think people now believe with us that qualifying is possible, with the preparation we're doing, but this ambition and desire to reach the next stage is nothing new for us," Rafael Lisboa told Lusa news agency. According to the Portuguese '28', this team's training group has always been ambitious: "The coach Mário Gomes often says, and it's completely true: whenever we go to a qualifier, to a European Championship, to whatever it may be, we have objectives, and our objective is to qualify."

The preparation included five high-level matches, three on Spanish soil, with Portugal beating European champions Spain (76-74) and losing to Spain B (63-64) and Argentina (70-84), and two in Braga, where they beat Iceland (83-79, on Friday) and Sweden (78-61, on Saturday). "Preparing to win is always better than preparing to lose, and we go into every game, regardless of whether it is a competition or not, to win is in this team's DNA. Every day, even in training, we compete with each other to win. Working with victories is always better and gives us more confidence," explained the Brazilian point guard.

The Portuguese national team put in two strong performances in Braga, building on their performance in Spain: "We had a very good first game [76-74 against Spain] and a very good first half against Spain B, while the game against Argentina and the second half against Spain B were not as good."

In the match against the Swedes, Rafael Lisboa, in his 45th match for the senior national team, was one of the standout players for the Portuguese team, tallying 14 points, seven assists, and three rebounds in 23.19 minutes. With him on the field, Portugal had a positive balance of 19 points – the best in this regard. After these five games, there is still "one more week of preparation, to fine-tune the final touches for the European Championship," and "the most important thing of all is to have everyone 100% physically ready to enter the European Championship."