Call
Without players from Madrid or Barça, Spain will face Macedonia in Zaragoza, Georgia in Tbilisi and Ukraine in Riga
Without players from Real Madrid or Barcelona, nor from the NBA, Unicaja will be the most represented team in the call-up of the Spanish team facilitated this Tuesday by Sergio Scariolo for the next three games of the qualifying phase for the 2023 World Cup , which will be played in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia. Alberto Díaz, Jaime Fernández, Darío Brizuela and Jonathan Barreiro have been summoned by the Italian coach for the matches against North Macedonia (July 1 in Zaragoza), Georgia (July 4 in Tbilisi) and Ukraine (July 7 in Riga), corresponding to the windows, in a mixture of experience and youth in the national team, also with two Valencia Basket internationals (Jaime Pradilla and Xabi López-Arostegui), and with Tyson Pérez, a MoraBanc Andorra player) as a guest among the 16 internationals.
Those summoned will meet next Monday the 27th in Zaragoza, where the first training sessions will begin to prepare for the first duel that Spain will play four days later against Macedonia in the Príncipe Felipe Pavilion. The Spanish team occupies, after Georgia, the second position of its group, although with one game less, since the match against Ukraine that should have been played last February in kyiv was postponed due to the war. Scariolo’s team beat North Macedonia away (65-94) and Georgia (89-61) and Ukraine (88-74) at home in their first three games on the way to the World Cup in which they will defend their title. Spain already has guaranteed its participation in the second phase of the classification, in which they will face Italy, Iceland and the Netherlands, and whose first window will be played in August.
The 15 players called up are: Jonathan Barreiro (Unicaja), Ferran Bassas (Joventut), Darío Brizuela (Unicaja), Quino Colom (AEK de Atenas), Alberto Díaz (Unicaja), Dani Díez (Hereda San Pablo Burgos), Jaime Fernández ( Unicaja), Fran Guerra (Lenovo Tenerife), Xabi López-Arostegui (Valencia Basket), Joel Parra (Joventut Badalona), Jaime Pradilla (Valencia Basket), Miquel Salvó (Gran Canaria), Sebas Saiz (Almark Tokyo), Yankuba Sima ( Baxi Manresa) and Santi Yusta (Casademont Zaragoza). As a guest, Tyson Pérez (MoraBanc Andorra).
“As always, we have a very interesting mix of future projects and established players who have already contributed a lot to the national team,” admits Sergio Scariolo. “With them we want to face these three quite demanding games. Also, this working group will give us indications to choose which and how many of them will be part of the group that will prepare this year’s Eurobasket starting on August 1″, added the national coach.
