2019 China Basketball World Cup: 32 teams are already classified!
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The maximum basketball tournament, scheduled from August 31 to September 15, has many interesting things. USA, again, is the favorite
It will be the first basketball world with 32 teams, the first after five years to disengage from the World Cup and the first in which FIBA implemented the system of qualifying windows, following the FIFA qualifiers style. With this they eliminated the previous prizes, which were played in a single country and on a specific date in each geographical region.
Leer en español: Mundial Baloncesto China 2019: ¡ya están los 32 clasificados!
With the 32 quotas decided, the next step on the road to the 2019 China Basketball World Cup will be the draw, which will be held on March 16 in Shenzhen, one of the eight cities that will host this event. Former basketball player Kobe Bryant, singer Jason Derulo, and former Chinese basketball player Yao Ming, designated as the ambassador of the World Cup, will participate according to one of the several articles that the FIBA Basketball page has dedicated to the current tournament.
The FIBA's masculine world ranking has also determined which will be the seeds for the draw: the eight groups of four countries each will be headed by China (host), along with the seven best of the ranking, namely the United States, Spain, France, Serbia, Argentina, Lithuania, and Greece.
The NBA website adds that, with the exception of the host China, the rest of the nations had to get their ticket to the World Cup, including the previous champion, USA, through the elimination system that began in November 2017 and ended in February 2019. There will be two historical debutants in the competition, Czech Republic and Montenegro will debut for the first time in their history, both coincidentally from Europe.
Read also: Everything you need to know about FIBA 2019 Basketball World Cup
And the classifying teams are…
The NBA reviews the geographic regions according to the number of classifying teams for the September worldwide event. The tour begins in Europe, where Germany, France, Greece, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Spain, Turkey, Italy, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro secured a place.
From this part of the world, the great absentee will be the Slovenia of the NBA revelation Luka Doncic, the current European champion who was eliminated in the windows. To make matters worse, the FIBA confirmed that, for this new edition, there will be no wild cards (or invitations), as in previous editions, so the Slovakian team will definitely not participate.
Regarding America, Argentina was the first American team to ensure its presence in China. The 'albiceleste' was followed by the USA, Venezuela, Canada, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, in that order. The great absentee in the World Cup will be Mexico.
Finally, Asia and Oceania, 7 places were distributed in addition to China's one, for a total of 8. After the windows in this geographical area were played, the classified ones were: China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Iran, Philippines, and Jordan. With regard to the African continent, there will be a total of five countries in the World Cup, a quota that was filled by Angola, Nigeria, Tunisia, Senegal and Ivory Coast.
About some of the Latin American teams
The same FIBA advances a bit about two Latin American countries that will be in the World Cup: Venezuela and Brazil. Venezuela had a great qualifying round with a record of 9-3 and a second place, just behind Canada. In fact, Basquetplus notes, 'La Vinotinto' came to be 8-1 and qualified before playing its tenth game, since it had already 8 wins and the pending match between Puerto Rico and Uruguay assured it to be the best fourth place of the two groups.
Thus, Venezuela achieved its fourth classification for a World Cup, as it had previously done in 1990, 2002 and 2006, and now classified under the command of the outstanding Argentinian strategist Fernando Duró.
The Amazonian team reached its goal in the last qualifying window, beating the Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic and thus remain with a record of 9-3 and be third in Group F. Brazil will play its 18th uninterrupted World Cup, in which, together with the USA, they have been the only two teams that have played all editions, something similar to what happens with their national soccer team.
The arrival of the Balkan coach Aleksandar Petrović has been fundamental to making Brazil achieve their successes on the board, something that was lost with Rubén Magnano. Men like Anderson Varejão, Rafa Luz, Leandro Barbosa, Marquinhos Souza and Lucas Dias are now the joint leaders of this talented quintet.
"I am a European coach who came to Brazil to do a different job and this game (against the Dominican Republic) reflects that. We play with a lot of character. It was an important match because I had some doubts, but this match was clarifying for me and in 5 months when I make the call with all available players, Brazil will have a great team for the World Cup," Petrović said.
LatinAmerican Post | Onofre Zambrano
Translated from "Mundial Baloncesto China 2019: ¡ya están los 32 clasificados!
