GOIANIA (FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019) — Brazil will welcome Chile at Goiânia Arena this Sunday in the second date of the FIBA Basketball World Cup Qualifiers. The team coached by Aleksandar Petrović will try to close the window undefeated in Group B after defeating Colombia by a wide margin (48-49). Meanwhile, Chile will try to recover from the difficult loss against Venezuela (56-77) as visitors to try to equal their record (1-2) and continue with possibilities to the third phase of the Qualifiers.

Point guard Ricardo Fischer talked before the game about some of the improvements the team must do to face Chile: 

“We must work more on intensity. We have to work on the 5 on 5, which wasn’t too good a gainst Colombia. We're working and trying to do what Petrović wants. We have to keep the strong defense.”Ricardo Fischer (BRA)Ricardo Fischer (BRA)

The team led by Aleksandar Petrović is coming from throwing a 38.46% from the three-point area (10 of 26) and 47.62% from the field, while capturing 50 rebounds (35 defensive) and handing out 26 assists. The leaders against Colombia were Leandro Barbosa, with 18 points, and Anderson Varejão with 14 and 13 rebounds.

The Croatian coach said: “I'm very satisfied with the second quarter against Colombia and the players’ attitudes. We sent a clear message for the next game against Chile.”

The Anderson Varejão-Leandro Barbosa duo lead the statistics of the Brazilian roster. The center has a 23.0 average per game and dominates the rebounds (11.3), and is currently the second-best scorer, behind the shooting guard (18.0 and 18.0 in efficiency), who has 13.7.

Meanwhile, Claudio Jorquera's squad only captured 26 rebounds and could only assist 8 times against Venezuela. They achieved 44.9% in field goals (22-49) in a night that was weak in scoring by the rest of the roster, where there were no other players who stood out, except Gerardo Isla, who did 16.

“It's never nice to lose. Although we didn't play a good game, I feel at ease because the players are leading a good path that takes into consideration what we want in the court. We have to improve the percentages in field goals for the match against Brazil, but I'm satisfied with the half-court defense we did, which was very positive at times.”Claudio Jorquera (CHI)Claudio Jorquera (CHI)

Sebastián Suárez is the leader in points in the Qualifiers, with a 13-point average per game and with 4.5 rebounds (12.5 efficiency per game); while Sammis Reyes is the rebound leader with 5.3 and Erik Carrasco leads assists with 3.7 per game.

With the victory against Colombia, Brazil reaffirm their group leadership with 6 points. They are followed by Venezuela, with 5, Chile is third with 4, and Colombia closes with 3. The first three teams of the group phase qualify for the next stage. Then there will be 12 that will be distributed in two groups of six teams. It will be then that the seven qualified teams for the FIBA Basketball World Cup will be known. They will be the first three in each group, plus the best overall fourth, which will go to the World competition.

FIBA