The Men’s National Basketball Team This Friday he will take the first step on his route towards FIBA World Cup 2027 when they host Jamaica at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan at the start of the first qualifying window of the Americas.
It will be the first of two consecutive games on the island, with the second scheduled for Monday, also against the Jamaicans.
This phase marks the formal beginning of the long qualification process towards the World Cup tournament to be held in Doha, Qatar. In total, 16 countries will compete for seven available spots on the continent, through six official windows that will run from this November to February 2027, under a round-trip format.
Puerto Rico is part of Group B, along with Canada, Bahamas and Jamaica. To advance to the second stage, the Puerto Ricans must finish among the first three in the group. In the next round, those three qualifiers will meet the best three from Group D, made up of Argentina, Uruguay, Panama and Cuba.
Qualifying action starts this Thursday in other groups in the region. In Group C, Chile will host Brazil on the Chilean soil of Valdivia. Meanwhile, Colombia will do the same against Venezuela in the city of Cali. For its part, in Group D, Cuba will host the duel against Argentina, and Panama will visit Uruguay to complete the opening day.
All of these teams will meet again this Sunday, but this time in the rival team’s country.
Like Puerto Rico, which begins its participation on Friday, in Group B, Bahamas will host Canada in Nassau. In Group A, Nicaragua will face the United States in Managua, and Mexico will face the Dominican Republic in Zacatecas. They will meet again on Monday.
Young team
For this first window, the general manager Carlos Arroyo He put together a young squad, led by the recently recruited point guard Zakai Zeigler, one of the main novelties of the Puerto Rican team. Tjader Fernández, Gian Clavell, Gary Browne, brothers Ethan and Stephen Thompson, Alexander Morales, Isaiah Piñeiro, Arnaldo Toro, Christian Negrón, Chris Ortiz and Jordan Cintrón will be in the Monoestrellada uniform.
Ortiz returns to the national program after overcoming a shoulder injury that left him out of previous commitments. Cintrón came in for the nationalized Tai Odiase, who was out of action after suffering a sprained ankle with his club, Hapoel Tel Aviv, in the EuroLeague.
The Puerto Ricans finished in twelfth place in the last 2023 World Cup, which was held between the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia. Puerto Rico managed to advance to the second round.
The current rival, Jamaica, which will begin its first participation in the qualifying windows for a FIBA World Cup, is ranked 95th in the world ranking and represents, on paper, an accessible opponent for Puerto Rico – current number 16 in the world – to start on the right foot.
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