POR - Palma dreaming of EuroBasket second round

GENEVA (EuroBasket) – When Mario Palma took over as head coach of the Portuguese National team three months ago his first mission was a given: to qualify his native country for EuroBasket.

On Tuesday, Portugal begin a home and away mini round-robin with Hungary and Finland, with the top two booking belated tickets to Lithuania.

With Palma at the helm, one thing Portugal do not lack is experience. The 61-year-old, who has coached at FIBA World Championships and Olympic Games with Jordan and Angola, is yet to taste defeat with Portugal.

Following narrow back to back victories over Switzerland – the latest of his team’s nine preparation games – fiba.com caught up with Palma to discuss their do-or-die qualifiers and his would be EuroBasket ambitions.

FIBA: How do you see your chances of progressing from the additional qualifying round to make it to EuroBasket in Lithuania next month?

Mario Palma: It is going to be difficult but we have our chance because we have played nine games and we have won all nine games in our preparation, against some strong teams like Iran.

Of course it isn’t going to be easy, but we have a chance and believe we can qualify for EuroBasket. I have confidence in my players and clearly we can do it.

FIBA: You have just come off back to back narrow wins over Switzerland. How do you believe this team compares to Hungary and Finland?

Palma: I think that the two teams are better than this [Switzerland], but you know they have Thabo Sefalosha from Oklahoma in the NBA, who is a great player and they have some good players playing in France.

Switzerland is starting to have a good team and they really surprised me, because they are a very good defensive team, they are really organised and I can certainly see them improving in the future.

These games were very hard for us – good preparation – they really really fought with us and both games went to the very end.

FIBA: Although you only recently took over as Portugal coach, you are already entering a vital period for your team.  What  what is the state of your squad ahead of these key games?

Palma: Well we have lost a lot of players through injury, so we have big problems. We also have players returning from injury, who have had four-five weeks without practice, so they have only had one week’s practice like for example Carlos Andrade.

We know that Finland and Hungary are adding players and recovering some veteran players who are good. It makes it very difficult for us. But I believe in my team, and believe we can qualify.

FIBA: If, as you expect, you do qualify for EuroBasket, what will Portugal’s ambitions be in Lithuania?

Palma: First of all we need to try to qualify in first place as we need to avoid the group with Spain and Turkey [group A]. The other group is also difficult, but not as strong. So if we qualify in first I believe we can fight to qualify for the second round.

I really believe in that and this will be our main objective.

But it wouldn’t be easy, as we lack experience in the European Cup [EuroBasket]. Portuguese basketball has some problems right now, but I am fighting hard because if the National Team has a good Championship we will improve basketball in Portugal.

So it is very important for us, all the players know that and everyone is fighting on the same side. Let’s see what can happen, you never know…

FIBA