SINES (FIBA EuroBasket 2021 Pre-Qualifiers) - Once on the radar of NBA teams, Joao Gomes has different goals now, one of them – getting Portugal back among Europe's elite.

In his early twenties, Gomes was living out the dream of any young basketball player: representing his country at the highest level and getting a shot in the world's biggest league. That was back in the mid-2000's. Portugal were causing upsets at FIBA EuroBasket 2007, with a 22-year-old cornrowed Gomes playing a key role on the team and at the same time, earning workouts with the likes of the Boston Celtics and Detroit Pistons.

For Gomes, and fans of Portugal basketball, that may now feel like a lifetime ago. With a bye on Thursday evening, Portugal begin the second window of the FIBA EuroBasket 2021 Pre-Qualfiers at home on Sunday afternoon, in something of a precarious position, and a long way from the heights of 2007.

A cornrowed Joao Gomes played a big role for Portugal at FIBA EuroBasket 2007

One thing that remains the same however is Gomes, and his commitment to the national team, even if the dreams of playing in the NBA have faded. "I don't think about that no more, I think I am kind of too old for that now," offers Gomes with a laugh.

"For now it is just about doing my best and doing what my team needs me to do. Now I leave that dream for the other players and my son – he is just a baby right now but he has both a father and mother who play basketball so for sure I hope he will follow us," add Gomes, whose wife, Sofia Ramalho, is also a former Portugal international.

The Cape Verde native, who played at U16 level for the African island nation but has made Portugal his home since his late teens, acknowledges, that right now, a repeat of 2007 and 2011 final round appearances is some way off, as Portugal transitions to a new generation.

"In 2007, the team we had was more experienced. We had a lot of guys playing in other leagues — the Spanish, French and Italian — so our team was very strong," explains the forward, who is one of the few national team members to make a career outside of Portugal. "Now, most of our players are only playing in the Portuguese domestic league.

The majority of the Portugal national team, like Claudio Fonseca, play their domestic basketball for Portuguese clubs

"Unfortunately, we only have two Portuguese teams playing in Europe – Benfica and Porto. So we hope the Portuguese players on these teams get a lot of minutes and experience. For now, we are thinking about the future. We need to be patient and try to learn from these games, which are against teams at our level."

How can Portugal get more exposure for their players and get more players going abroad? For Gomes, the answer lies in the new FIBA competition windows.

"We need to organize more friendly games and get more exposure for all of the players, during the summer. Players will only get better with more games. The good thing with the windows is, that during the summer, we have more free time – time we can use to create more friendly games."

But before summer, we need to get back to that precarious position Portugal find themselves in – hosting Cyprus in a must-win game in an unforgiving competition system that only sees four teams advance to the next phase of competition.

"The first window wasn't easy as we did not have so much time to prepare ourselves. We only had two practices before the first game (in Cyprus) and we traveled so it was tough," rues Gomes, looking back to his side's previous 69-67 loss to the Cypriots.

"Our defense was terrible because we were a little bit tired. Even against Luxembourg, the same thing happened because we traveled back to home so no time to rest before the game. Luxembourg were well prepared and we struggled to win that game."

With just three teams in the group, Portugal at least can take advantage of having the bye on Thursday, a factor Gomes sees working in his team's favor.

"This time we have had one week to prepare ourselves and no traveling in the middle so I think the team will be better physically to prepare for this game and try to get a good win and show that the away game against Cyprus was simply a mistake – it wasn't our game.

"Having said that, Cyprus are a good team who have been improving a lot in recent years and we respect them a lot."

FIBA