Basketball/Cape Verde at the World Cup: “This is a victory for all the Cape Verdean people” – coach

The Cape Verdean senior men's basketball coach dedicated the unprecedented qualification of the national team to the 2023 FIBA World Cup to all the Cape Verdean people, considering it to be a victory of “resilience, dedication, sacrifice and much love for the Motherland”.

At a press conference held at the Salão Multiuso de Luanda, stage for the games in this fifth and final African qualifying window, which dictated the qualification of the Tubarões Azuis (the name by which the Cape Verdean team is known), Emanuel Trovoada, who made a point of speaking his first words in Creole, extended this dedication to his family, the Government and the president of the federation, Mário Correia.

For Mané, as he is treated sportingly, he said that this qualification makes it clear that “ it is always worth believing that work pays off and that ” everything was designed so that one day Cape Verdean youths can be in the World Cup.

Faced with the anxiety of the foreign journalists who covered the event, since the Cape Verdean press, once again, was off the stage of the competition, Mané emphasized that it was the victory of the will, explaining that some of the players even had to pay for their passages exemplifying the case of Edy Tavares, who had played on the eve of the game with Angola, for Real Madrid for the Euroleague, but who even faced the Angolans and Ivorians.

Keeping the players in an atmosphere of serenity so that they can enjoy the pleasure of playing basketball and transferring all the sense of responsibility to the technical team, were for Mané one of the assets for this qualification, which joins the feat achieved in 2007 when he took Cabo Verde the Bronze medal at the African championship, also held on Angolan soil.

The Cape Verde basketball team qualified this afternoon for the first time for the sport's World Cup, beating its Ivory Coast counterpart (79-64).

Cape Verde ended the qualifying phase in third place in group E with 16 points, the same as Angola, in a poule won by Ivory Coast with 18 points.

South Sudan, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Angola and Cape Verde will be the African representatives in the great showcase of world basketball.

Mundial'2023 will have the participation of 32 teams instead of the usual 24 and will take place between August 25th and September 10th in Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The Week with Inforpress