MONASTIR (Tunisia) - Tunisia have preselected 15 players for their phase of preparations for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019, the Tunisian Basketball Federation confirmed. 

The reigning African champions opened their training camp on Monday, June 24, in the Tunisian coastal city of Monastir, a session that will run until July 6.

Salah Mejri, Michael Roll and Omar Abada will join the team at a later stage, and Firas Lahiani is due to undergo medical exams, according to coach Mario Palma. 

In addition to eleven 11 players who helped the North African side qualify for their second World Cup with a 10-2 mark in the African Qualifiers, Palma invited newcomers Boualague Amer, Foudhyli Hamza, Achref Khayati and Sayah Mahdi.

This is a group of players that has been playing together for almost a decade. Ben Romdhane, Radhouane Slimane, Nizar Knioua, Mohamed Hadidade, Mokthar Ghyaza not only helped their country win their first-ever African title in 2011, but they have all featured for Tunisia at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2010 in Turkey.

"We want to advance to the Second Round," Palma said to FIBA.basketball when asked about the need to start their preparations early.

He continued: "Salah [Mejri] isn't available for this first period of preparations, but he Michael Roll and Omar Abada will be joining us at a later stage of our preparations."

The man who experienced the World Cup before at the helm of Angola (1994 and 2002) and Jordan (2010) recalled that he knows their opponents really well. "Spain are the favorite on our group, but we'll do everything we can to win games and write a new chapter for Tunisian basketball," Palma pointed out.

Mario Palma (Tunisia)

Analysing Tunisia's opponents in the Group Phase, the veteran playcaller recalled that they faced Spain last year during a warm-up tournament in the Southern Europe country. "We lost by 22 or 24 points, but we beat Belgium in the same tournament. Spain is clearly one of the three teams that can win the World Cup [2019], especially if they bring their NBA players. It is going to be a tough game for us, but we are going to try and play the best we can."

 
He described Puerto Rico and Iran as Tunisia's main target. "But even these two teams are strong. I have faced Puerto Rico before [as head coach of Angola] in Indianapolis -2002 and at Athens Olympics [Angola lost by two]. It was a tight contest as we lost in overtime.

"At the time, Puerto Rico had good players, but right now, I don’t know what they have. But we have to scout them and analyse how they play.

“Iran is still a strong team, they have Hamed [Haddadi] who could be a problem for us. These are strong teams, but we are used to facing strong teams. At AfroBasket 2017 there were stronger teams than ours, but we won the championship.

“Spain are favorite, but I don't think they can beat us by a large difference. Spain and us have different objectives, they will come to win the World Cup, and we'll play our best, and we'l try to become the best ranked African team to qualify for the 2020 Olympics.

"Tunisia will have a good championship. We have beaten Bulgaria and Finland before - they are not top teams in Europe, but they are good teams.  Last year we lost against France by 10, so I think we will play well," Palma explained.

The Tunisians have lined up warm-up games in China, Romania, France and Japan before they travel to Guangzhou where they will go up against Spain, Puerto Rico and Iran in Group C.

FIBA