ESP – Marta Fernandez desperately wants return to Spain national side

BARCELONA (2010 FIBA World Championship for Women) – The fast-breaking and nifty-passing Marta Fernandez admits she’s looking forward to returning to Spain’s national team.

Fernandez, one of the country’s most important players in a four-year stretch from 2003 to 2006, hasn’t represented the country since the FIBA World Championship in Brazil four years ago.

But after another successful campaign with Wisla Can-Pack Krakow, whom she helped reach the EuroLeague Women Final Four, Fernandez says she wants to be with Spain when they compete at the 2010 FIBA World Championship in the Czech Republic.

"I am completely available and with a lot of will to return to the national team if the national coach (Jose Ignacio Hernandez) calls me up,” she said.

“More so considering he knows me and I know him.

“I would love to return. It would be a pleasure."

Hernandez coaches Fernandez at Wisla and raved about her contributions to the team this season when she was voted to the Europe team at the EuroLeague Women All-Star Game.

Fernandez had believed she would represent Spain at the Beijing Olympics but was not even included in the preliminary squad, something that surprised her at the time and upset her brother, Spanish men’s national team star Rudy Fernandez.

She dealt with the disappointment, though, and hopes to write a new chapter with Spain, who will take on Brazil, Korea and Mali in Group C when the Preliminary Round tips off September 23.

"These things happen and you don't have to give it too much importance,” she said of her recent exclusion.

“I have not been in several years and you cannot dwell on it.

“I have always been open to return to the national team but for circumstances, it has not been possible but it's not a problem."

FIBA