The Cuban men’s basketball team will face its counterpart from Mexico today in the second qualifying window with a view to the 2023 World Cup, in a match that will be held at the Ciudad Deportiva Coliseum in this capital.
In this duel that will begin at 7 pm, the cast of Cuba (0-2) will seek its first victory against rivals that are undefeated in two appearances on the field, for which they lead group D followed by the Americans and Puerto Ricans, both teams with an even balance of 1-1.
For the aspirations of the locals, the contribution of three of their main players will be very important: Jasiel Rivero, who is part of the Valencia Basket club in the Spanish League, Karel Guzmán, from U-BT Cluj-Napoca in Romania, and Yoanki Mensía, a player of Gymnastics and Fencing of Comodoro Rivadavia, in Argentina.
In the first qualifying window for next year’s World Cup, the island’s representatives lost 90-95 to the United States and 60-69 to Puerto Rico last November.
Those meetings took place in the “bubble” of Chihuahua, Mexico, on the field of the University Auditorium Gymnasium, where the Cubans put up a fight against their opponents, but were unable to win.
For example, against the Puerto Ricans, they “deflated” after a great start to the game in which they dominated the first quarter with a good 27-16 lead.
However, from then on the winners took over the match with successes of 21-16, 16-7 and 16-10 in the remaining three sets, which allowed them to come out on top.
As happened against the Americans, the Caribbean nation as a whole lacked a bit of drive at the end of the challenge and they paid dearly for that against rivals of great quality and competitive experience.
Under the qualifying system, after completing the six-match group stage, the top three in the preliminary stage in each bracket will be able to continue to compete to secure one of the seven tickets from the Americas to the 2023 World Cup. , planned to be held in the shared venues of Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan.
