Venezuela and the Dominican Republic will compete for their dream in the World Cup
VALENCIA (FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 Americas Qualifiers) — Two aspiring teams to one of the spots for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 in China will face each other in a duel that has no space for mistakes.
After the necessary victories in the script, the Dominican Republic will visit Venezuela on Sunday at the city of Valencia, in a vital game for both teams that are part of Group F.
Venezuela shares the lead in Group F with Canada, both with 6-1, although the South Americans are second due to a difference in points. The same criteria applies to the Dominican Republic, who are tied in the third place with Brazil, 5-2. But the Brazilians are in a better position for the World Cup thank to their better point-average.
Despite they are third in Group F, at the moment, the Dominican Republic have a World Cup ticket since they have a better record than the fourth team of Group E, Uruguay (4-3).
The maroon jerseys are coming from their triumph last Thursday against the US Virgin Islands and continue strongly in the Americas Qualifiers. The South American national team, led by Argentine Fernando Duró, has had an impressive campaign in the Qualifiers and are on a solid path towards their first World Cup since Japan 2006.
Argentine coach Fernando Duró acknowledged that the Venezuelans are expecting a strong game against a demanding Dominican Republic that is trying to recover lost terrain because of the defeat against the Bahamas in the first round. This is a heavy weight on their shoulders for this stage.
“We must compete. We will face a team that competes for the same thing that we do — get to the World Cup. They made a mistake by losing against Bahamas as locals. We have studied them quite well, since there are players that are at Spain’s ACB League and play in important teams; others play in the Argentine league.”
Duró was clear in that Venezuela must be effective and consistent in the counterattacks against an athletic Dominican team.
“I think that the Dominican Republic have a team that's more complete in quantity and quality of the players. We have to make adjustments. We have to throw 80% of the free throws, we can’t lose 15 balls. We have elements to compete and I trust in our teamwork, just like I've been doing for the past year and a half,” the Argentine highlighted.
Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic raised their spirits by overcoming Chile last Thursday. For the Caribbean team, the triumph was essential; first, because it was against the group’s lowest ranking team, and also because they left behind the 0-2 of the last window, which included their blunder against the Bahamians.
The great mystery for the Dominican Republic would be the availability of forward Ángel Delgado, of whom there were doubts of his appearance due to contractual issues. But on Saturday everything was solved, as was reported by the National Team.
“We have to focus on Venezuela. Do the same job before the game. We have some things about their game (against the Virgin Islands) and we're going to work.”
Venezuela and the Dominican Republic will face again in these Qualifiers on February 21, 2019 — this time on the Caribbean island.
FIBA
