The sub-17 stops in Villanueva

The José Manuel Calderón pavilion, the one in which this illustrious man from Villanova scored his first balls, will once again be the stage this weekend to enjoy the young promises of national and international basketball. Villanueva de la Serena will host the ‘Serena U17M’ International Basketball Tournament from June 17 to 19. An important sporting event that will feature the participation of the U-17 teams from Spain, France and Serbia, three of the world’s great basketball powers.

A tournament that will serve as preparation for the World Cup in Malaga this coming July and which was presented this Monday in the host town. “We are especially proud to host this major tournament in matches that will be open to the public completely free of charge until full capacity is reached,” said the Councilor for Sports, María Lozano. “Villanueva de la Serena is the city of basketball par excellence, proof of this is that this past weekend we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Doncel sports club and together with Inicia-San José we added more than 400 federative licenses,” he added. she.

Lozano was accompanied in the presentation by Dan de Sande, general director of Sports of the Junta de Extremadura; Manolo Aller, coordinator of the national men’s training teams; Francisco Martos, Deputy for Sports of the Badajoz Provincial Council; and Víctor Morera, vice-president of the Extremeña Basketball Federation.

high level basketball

«During these days we are going to have in Villanueva a group of players that in the near future we will undoubtedly see in the best Spanish and European teams; we are going to see very high level basketball”, explained Víctor Morera.

For his part, the representative of the Spanish Basketball Federation confirmed the high level of the three participating teams. “All three can be perfectly on the podium of the U-17 World Cup, both Serbia and France above all, and we hope that also because we really have a good team and we are going to fight for it,” said Manolo Aller, who has also indicated that the Spanish players They have spent several days concentrating in Villanueva de la Serena, while the teams from Serbia and France will arrive this Thursday in the town of Serona.

The players selected by Spain are: Sergio de Larrea, David Barbera, Pablo Navarro and Lucas Marí (Valencia Basket), Conrad Martínez (Joventut Badalona), Lucas Langarita and Aday Mara (Casademont Zaragoza), Abel Delicado, Bruno Vidarte and Hugo González ( Real Madrid), Diego Fernández (Cajasiete Canarias), Rubén Vicente and Álvaro Folgueiras (Unicaja), Pol Salo (FC Barcelona), Pau Monterosa (BAXI Manresa) and Izan Almansa (USA). They are the sixteen selected by Javier Zamora who are between 16 and 17 years old.

The first game will be this Friday between France and Serbia; On Saturday, Spain will debut in the tournament against the French team; and on Sunday it will be the duel between Spaniards and Serbs. All games, with free admission, will be at 8:00 p.m. The capacity of the pavilion from Villanova is around 1,000 spectators.

Finally, for Dan de Sande, it is the beginning “of a very beautiful path that begins with the U-17 team and ends in February with the senior team in the first official match to be held in Extremadura.”