MADRID, 7 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish women's basketball team will begin its Pre-Olympic tournament this Thursday in the Hungarian city of Sopron in which it will face Japan, Canada and the host Hungary in search of getting one of the three tickets that are distributed to be in the Olympic Games of Paris, one of the great objectives in the transition that Miguel Méndez began.
The current European runners-up is already on Hungarian soil to face this vital event to be able to be in the French capital next summer, a goal that seems attainable because only one of the four teams is left out, but also misleading because it does not give much margin in the event of a bad day.
In any case, Spain is presented at the Novomatic Arena as the theoretical main favorite, not only because of its potential and its latest continental success but because of the four it is the one with the highest ranking in FIBA, number four, just one ahead of Canada, while Japan is ninth, but with the endorsement of being the current Olympic runner-up, and Hungary, 19th, although with the public's plus.
For all these reasons, the women's team is cautiously approaching this Pre-Olympic, for which it has not had much time to prepare, embedded in a complicated stretch of the campaign, and which for coach Miguel Méndez is “twisted” and that, “90 percent cent”, will not be resolved until the last day.
The Galician coach can complete in Hungary the transition that he undertook in November 2021 and that already bore its first fruits in the last Eurobasket and the valuable return to the podium. Méndez took on the reconstruction of the team after Lucas Mondelo's successful period with a turbulent end and his work also makes optimism grow for this event. In fact, of his 24 games he has only lost two officials, both in the Eurobasket against Latvia and the final against Belgium, and a friendly against Hungary prior to the continental event.
Méndez has had his most usual block to face this Pre-Olympic where the main novelty is the presence of the nationalized center Megan Gustafson, who has not yet debuted and who arrives to give more variants to the internal game of a team that, on the contrary, He will not be able to count on guard Silvia Domínguez due to injury, who joins the absence of María Araújo who has just returned from overcoming a second serious knee injury.
A seasoned and expert team in these matters, led by names such as Alba Torrens, Laura Gil, Cristina Ouviña or Leo Rodríguez, all of them with more than one hundred international titles, already established young people such as Raquel Carrera, and with new players such as Mariona Ortiz and Irati Etxarri , main news regarding Eurobasket.
JAPAN, IMPORTANT FIRST STEP
Spain will begin its journey this Thursday (4:30 p.m.) against Japan, the first rival and against whom it hopes to obtain a victory so as not to go with excessive urgency to the second duel on Thursday against Canada (3:30 p.m.). The closing would be on Sunday against the host Hungary (5:30 p.m.).
The Spanish team knows that the first match always entails the added difficulty of all debuts and in this sense it already has the experience of the past Eurobasket when it lost to Latvia in a debut that was apparently simple.
Furthermore, Japan will appear after having had a lot of time to prepare for this Pre-Olympic, where it wants to earn the right to defend its surprising Olympic silver medal achieved at 'home'. The Asian team could not offer the same performance in the following year's World Cup, where it could not overcome the first phase, although last year, like Spain, it was close to its continental title, being surpassed in the final by China. very tight (73-71).
Japan maintains some players who reached the Olympic podium such as Akaho, Takada, Motohashi, Miyazaki and Evelyne Mawuli, the latter who is now accompanied by her sister Stephanie, a Movistar Estudiantes player who averages more than 9 points in the Endesa Women's League.
The current European runner-up has not faced this rival since their encounter in the first match of the World Cup that Tenerife hosted in 2018 and with victory for the Spanish 84-71, a match with the presence of Alba Torrens, Cristina Ouviña, Laura Gil and Queralt Casas.
DATASHEET.
–EQUIPMENT.
SPAIN: Ouviña, Cazorla, Ortiz, Vilaró, Casas, Rodríguez, Torrens, Conde, Etxarri, Carrera, Gil and Gustafson.
JAPÓN: S.Mawuli, Kawai, Takada, Yoshida, Motohashi, Haneda, Noguchi, Yamamoto, Saki, E.Mawuli, Hirashita, Miyazaki y Akaho.
–PAVILLION: Novomatic Arena in Sopron.
–TIME: 16.30/Teledeporte.