Macedonian basketball team with 67-65 victory over host Lithuania at late Wednesday’s match booked its place at the European basketball championship semi-finals thus accomplishing the greatest success in its history.

While the home fans left the arena in stunned silence, Macedonian supporters cheered and sang long after the game was over.

- By this victory we have once again showed that we have the deserved fourth place in Europe. We have played smartly, without pressure and we knew what we must do. I am very satisfied from the play of my basketball players who once again left their heart on the field. This is great victory for us and for Macedonia, coach Marin Dokuzovski said.

- We will not stop here. We have silenced our critics and 14,000 home fans in Kaunas, we dedicate this victory to the Macedonian people after playing our hearts out for our country, Macedonia centre Pero Antic said.

- It's a huge win for us," said Vojdan Stojanovski, who added 15 points after hitting all five of his three-point attempts. We kept the game close, we kept them to 65 points, we played very good defense and the pressure was on them at the end.

- It feels good, man, McCalebb said, who scored 23 points, adding "We got a big win today, against Lithuania, on their home court and all their fans. Today everyone was against us, 15,000 against us, but we pulled it up."

Thousands of fans thronged the central square in Macedonia's capital Skopje to celebrate after watching the game on giant video screens, sporting national flags and team shirts.

In Friday's semi-finals, Macedonia will play against Spain. The other two quarter-finals will be played on Thursday with France facing Greece and Russia meeting Serbia.

The winners and runners-up of Eurobasket 2011 will qualify automatically for next year's Olympics in London along with hosts Britain, while the next four teams in line will enter an inter-continental, 12-team play-off for another three berths.