This summer Poland will held a new edition of the Division "A" European Championship, a tournament with the hosts as the main favorites after winning the silver in last U-17 World Championship with great performances of prospects like Mateusz Ponitka ('93), Przemek Karnowski ('93) or Tomasz Gielo ('93). As part of the preparation of this event four national teams will meet next month (April 21st-23rd) in Vilagarcia de Arousa (Spain) to play the Vilagarcia Basket Cup. The organization released some days ago the three squads that will compete with the spaniards: France, Italy and Germany. All of them have interesting and intriguing pieces.
France, a team built with many INSEP prospects, always competes in a high level. Livio Jean Charles ('93) will be the leader, with the help from players like Hugo Invernizzi ('93) or Yannis Morin ('93). Coach Philippe Ory already selected a first list of 20 players for the event. Between them we can also find William Howard ('93) and Mouhammadou Jaiteh ('94). Spain, in the same group as french team in Poland, won the 2009 U-16 EC with this same generation, even last summer struggled in the U-17 WC. Is difficult for Jaime Fernández ('93), from Estudiantes, to play in Vilagarcia due to the ACB competition, like Albert Homs ('94, DKV Joventut), while Josep Pérez ('94, Barcelona) is injured. What players could be in Vilagarcia? Maybe Alex Suárez ('93, DKV Joventut), Daniel Diaz ('93, Real Madrid) or Guillermo Hernangómez ('94). Youngster Javier Marin ('94, Zaragoza) and Alex Abrines ('93, Malaga) can also be options.
Italy has also been invited. Youngster Francesc Candussi ('94) is showing good potential on last tournaments. He has chances to take part in the event. Other prospects? Matteo Chillo ('93), Diego Monaldi ('93), Aristide Landi ('94), Niccolo de Vico ('94) or Francesco Vecchia ('93) are other interesting names. Italy ended 12th on last U-18 European Championship in Lithuania. Finally Germany is the other team. With a nice generation they made a great Mannheim tournament last edition even they were one year younger. They finished 8th in the U-17 World Championship of Hamburg with talented elements like 2.11 Bogdan Radosavljevic ('93), currently playing in Bayern Munich.
