The Rosario coach was appointed as Coordinator of Training Teams at the end of 2021, but reality shows that he has been collaborating with CAB for eight years in international tournaments of minor categories. His experience in the development of athletes, the quality of the technical staff formed and a first-rate organizational management sowed the ground for our young people to reap not only maturation but also important sporting achievements during a fruitful 2022.
The activity began in the first days of January, with a large concentration of the female branch in CeNARD and the male branch in Saladas, while the first PDF of the cycle took place in Paraná in March. Those premature meetings would set the tone for an intense year touring Argentina (Córdoba, Misiones, Salta, Jujuy, San Luis, Mendoza, Neuquén, Santiago del Estero, Mar del Plata, Olavarría) and culminating on December 20 in Buenos Aires with a mixed campus. “Having such a large country nourishes us with many players, but it is difficult to find and observe each talent, hence the importance of the PDF with which we detected and trained more than a thousand athletes last year. We started 2022 with the goal of carrying out 8 concentrations and we carried out 12, our ambitious goal is to even increase the number of PDF’s in 2023”, stated Marcos.
The competitions that took place -some even hosted on national soil- confirmed the very good Argentine training position at the continental level: the U18 Men obtained the South American Sub-championship, 4th place in the FIBA Americas and qualified for the World Cup; the Women’s U18 also took the Silver in the South American and the World Cup ticket after the Bronze in the FIBA Americas; the U15 Boys climbed to second place in the South American; and the finishing touch came with the South American Championship for the U15 Girls in Chile. In this regard, Mariano commented: “It was a very interesting year in terms of results, but what stands out the most is how we prepared for them, through the Development Campus at CeNARD and the PDF’s. Undoubtedly, it was due to CAB’s commitment to training, especially in the girls who had twelve months of arduous activity. Of course, the icing on the cake was the Women’s U15 title, where work has been done spectacularly since the pandemic with training sessions via zoom”.
And not only progress was made in terms of selections, since the Federal Training League was also played again, while some of our youngsters excelled in the FIBA Youth Development and Basketball Without Borders programs of the NBA. In addition, the U17 categories achieved 15th place in the Women’s World Cup and 11th place in the Men’s. Regarding this last point, Marcos explained: “We want to win medals and play as many tournaments as possible, but without losing the main objective of developing. In any case, I like to think that training can go hand in hand with results. You can win by developing, and we seek to achieve it with our tools, aiming at the profile of the Argentine athlete. For the near future we must improve our physique, since by not being as tall as most of our rivals our shooting percentages are not so high, and that is key when competing against powers. Let’s hope that, continuing on this path, we can be up to the task over the years.”
After a year of exponential growth, this 2023 presents itself with great challenges at the competition level and the structural challenge of maintaining and deepening all the good done so far in our minor categories. “The first thing we will do in the summer is train prospects who have projection and need hours on the field, while in March we will have the U16 Development Camps and we will continue working with the U16 and U19 shortlists. The first tournaments of the year are perhaps the toughest and most significant, since in June both branches will play the FIBA Americas U16 that provides four tickets to the 2024 U17 World Cup and will be crucial to extend the international activity of these groups. Then the U19 World Cups will come, where the Men’s will play in Hungary at the end of June and the Women’s will play in Spain in July, and finally the South American U17s will arrive”, said the Training Team Coordinator.
Finally, thanking the associations and federations that permanently contribute to the enormous training project launched and highlighting the prevailing climate of communication and predisposition, Mariano Marcos concluded: “One of our primary objectives is to detect prospects from an early age, follow them and motivate them to join habits of professionalism We consider it vital that the next generations involve in their routine determining issues from the physical and from the technical/tactical. For this, it is necessary to highlight the fluid contact we have with the coaches of the clubs who are truly responsible for the growth of the selected teams with their daily work and also with the physical trainers who carry out an essential task in their development”.
