Thursday 19 June 2008

Caminhando para a China.


Head coach Albert " Ginguba" Carvalho called-up 19 players for the first phase of preparations to be held in Angola.
Carvalho, who is also coaching national-side Petro de Luanda, decided to bring back in veteran players Miguel Lutonda and Abel Bouckar, even though Lutonda declared to retire from the national-team while Boukar did not play in any official game in the last six months.

"I will try to convince him", told Carvalho the local media regarding Lutonda, and that Boukar is needed on the center position where Angola is short on height.

The goal for Beijing is to place better than 11th, which they achieved in the last Olympics in Athens in 2004.

Here is the list of players reporting to the camp and to medical exams in Angola:
Miguel Lutonda, Kikas Gomes, Olímpio Cipriano, Carlos Almeida, Armando Costa, Felizardo Ambrosio, Vlademir Ricardino (all of Primeiro Agosto),
Abdel Bouckar, Eduardo Mingas, Milton Barros, Victor Muzadi, Luis Costa, Carlos Morais, Domingos Bonifacio , Leonel Paulo, Francisco Horácio (Petro de Luanda), Idelfonso Quiteculo (ASA), Divaldo Bunga and Emanuel Neto
(USA).

Only 16 players will be traveling to Spain where they are going stay for 20 days and be playing five games.

Two players will be cut in Spain prior to the FIBA Diamond Ball in Nanjing (China), where Angola is heading to in the end of July to face hosts China and fellow competitors Australia in the group stages. This will be the final test before the Olympics for Angola, who are having a good mixture of youth and experience on the roster.

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