What the coaches said before the NORCECA’s Olympic
Qualifier
MONTERREY, Mexico, December 17 2007.- The Norceca Women’s Olympic
Qualification Tournament starts on Monday here with favourite and
third world-ranked Cuba meeting Canada (24th) and host
Mexico (25th) entertaining Trinidad & Tobago (70th).
Six teams –Dominican Republic (14th) and Puerto Rico
(19th) are the other two- will be battling for one
single spot in the next Beijing Olympic Games. USA, another team
from the region, won its berth last month as third place finisher
in the World Cup.
Cuba, Canada and Puerto Rico will play in Pool A and Mexico,
Dominican Republic and Trinidad & Tobago will compete in Pool B.
What follows are the statements of the head coaches during the
Sunday’s press conference.
Antonio Perdomo, Cuba:
“Our goal in this competition is to try to win the spot for the
Olympics in Beijing, which is very important. We will make
everything possible from technical and tactical point of view to
reach that goal but we have to see if the other teams will allow
it.
Beato Miguel Cruz, Dominican Repúblic:
“It is going to be a tough tournament because I think tour teams
are here with the objective of making the Olympics. For the first
time this year my team has all the players healthy and I expect a
good performance from them. The team who plays better among Cuba,
Canada, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico will qualify.
Naoki Miyashita, Canada:
“This competition is very important for us, tough we have had
problems with a couple of players that could not join the team,
but nevertheless we will try to improve every day and give our
best effort, that’s all I can say at this moment.
Juan Carlos Núñez, Puerto Rico:
“Our team suffered a series of losses during the last month
because of injuries but the squad has been training for two and a
half months and just a week ago we had a series of warm-up matches
with the Dominican Republic team. Despite those problems, mi
national team comes here with the same goal, and is to win the
Olympic ticket.”
Macario Gonzalez, Mexico:
“Thanks to the efforts of our Federation we have had four previous
tournaments and we come to play the best of the year. This is the
launching scenario for the 2011 Pan American Games which will be
host in our country in Guadalajara. We know the teams we will be
facing, because we have played against them several times this
year, and we are going to play hard against all of them.”
Francisco Cruz, Trinidad & Tobago:
“As it has been the case in all the competitions we have
participated this year, this is the fourth, our main objective is
that our players can get the most possible experience from their
rivals, since our project is that in one decade Trinidad & Tobago
can be positioned among the top four or five teams in the
NORCECA’s ranking.”
