GUADALAJARA, 16 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The national women’s basketball coach, Miguel Méndez, wants “players to show their talent by playing at a different level”, for which he needs to give “experience” to young women with a “bright future” in the squad, and was expectant to see how they react to “the difficulties” of playing away from home as will be the next triangle in Italy.
“We have to give the young players that we are recruiting the first experience. They are talented players, with a future that we assume and hope will be bright, but with many things to see, to improve, and we try to give them as much experience as possible in this ecosystem. That’s why we are going to play outside of Spain, we want them to live that experience and show their talent playing at a different level than the one they are playing in their clubs,” Méndez explained this Thursday after the national team’s training session in Guadalajara.
The coach stressed that some players “do not have a ‘top’ role” in their clubs “because there are many foreigners” and “not all of them play European competitions”, and for this reason he tries to make “a team that is as homogeneous as possible” from a group that does not overdo them “because they are of different ages, with different backgrounds and different experiences in clubs”.
The coach focuses on the importance of uniting the group in full generational transition. “We have to create a different chemistry because there are many players who are coming to the federation, to the absolute national team. We want to make a team, that we have that chemistry that is so important in round teams as soon as possible. Let them play together, live together , that they suffer together and that they have the same objective, this is one of the sections that we have dealt with these days,” he declared.
The Galician praised that his players “are always very motivated and optimistic” and that they are “a very happy group and very easy to train”. “We have fulfilled the objectives that we had, preparing the team for these friendly matches that we have, thinking in the short or medium term in November, when we have the qualifying window for the 2023 European Championship and we have fulfilled the objectives that we had, which is very fine,” he sentenced.
“WE WANT TO LIVE DIFFICULTIES”
“Victories are very important, of course, and every time we go out on the court we try to add up in the form of victories. But in this case it is true that the rest of the objectives we have are at the same level as winning the game. And that’s why if we only thought about winning, we would try to organize the tournament we are going to play at home. We want to go abroad, where they don’t make it as easy for us as they are making it for us in Guadalajara or as they made it for us in Melilla”, Mendez said. about going to Italy to face the Italian team and Slovenia in the next few days.
The coach believes that the team needs to “experience difficulties, live in a foreign field, with a different arbitration and with a different way of doing things.” “We want to compete and see the players compete in that environment,” he said.
Méndez also spoke of “a few players” that he has “in mind and that for one reason or another are not there.” “Cris Ouviña is not here, Astou Ndour is not here, Laura Gil is not here, players who are very important, who have been important in previous years and who will continue to be so in this cycle until 2024 and who for one reason or another have not able to be with us now,” he detailed.
The Galician spoke of the importance of “forming a group” and “a squad as long as possible” to “be able to make up for these casualties.” He also valued the role of Laia Palau as Team Manager of the national team, of whom he says that she “could even be dressed in shorts” and help “on the track”. “We are using her for many things. She has many things to offer and we have to organize ourselves well, I think she is a player with many qualities, with a lot of personal and basketball wisdom and we have to take advantage of her,” he concluded.