Mozambique: Women basketball team loses against Mexico

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Mozambique: Women basketball team loses against Mexico

8:10 CAT | 21 Aug 2024

Image: @Africabasket1/X

The national women’s basketball team lost 71-65 t to hosts Mexico in the first round of Group B of the FIBA World Championship pre-qualifying tournament which began in Mexico on Monday and will continue until Sunday.

After several setbacks related to their participation and travel, with the Mozambican Basketball Federation at first announcing its withdrawal, the national team arrived in Mexico in the early hours of Tuesday, where it played the host team at 5:30 a.m.. (Mozambique time).

Even so, Mozambique took control of the game, showing its strength. It tied in the first quarter (14-14), won in the second (9-19), and conceded by a narrow margin in the penultimate quarter (20-19). In the final quarter, lacking the same physical or emotional freshness, they lost 28-13, in a stage in which the refereeing trio, Franco Ronconi (Argentina), Aline García (Uruguay) and Sandra Sanchez Gonzalez (Spain) supposedly “motivated” the Mexicans.

On an individual level, the highlight was the young Célia Sumbana, who played her first game for the senior women’s national team and was the best athlete in the Mozambican team, with 16 points, three rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks.

Mozambique will play again on Thursday , at 1:30 a.m. (Mozambique time), against Montenegro, and will close this stage against New Zealand, on Friday at the same time.

FIBA paid for the plane tickets – Desafio

In the end, it was the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) that paid for the Mozambican delegation’s flights to Mexico, in a last-minute effort by the sport’s governing body at world level to avoid serious reputational, sporting and economic problems that would arise had Mozambique failed to compete, ‘Jornal Desafio’ reported on Monday.

After guarantees and counter-guarantees from those in Mozambique responsible for purchasing the national team’s air tickets, and the team being sent back home from Maputo airport on Friday, the alarm went off in Zurich, the capital of Switzerland, where FIBA is headquartered.

To this end, the president of FIBA-Africa, the Mozambican Aníbal Manave, handed over the baton to Paulo Mazivila, president of the Mozambican Football Federation (FMB).

From what Desafio has learned, Manave advised Paulo Mazivila to send a message labelled as of “enormous” concern to the president of FIBA-World, the Qatari Sheikh Saud Ali Al Than, describing the problem of the lack of air tickets and the serious risk of the team not traveling to Mexico.

Aware of the tremendous negative impact that Mozambique’s absence would have on the image of FIBA and world basketball, Sheikh Saud Ali Al Than ordered the issuance of air tickets – within FIBA’s budget.

Tickets for the game between Mexico and Mozambique sold out more than a month ago, so not holding the match would cause enormous discomfort. Furthermore, FIBA would incur a huge financial loss, given that it had already sold the television rights for the game a long time ago.

It was then that the FIBA-Africa office in Abidjan contacted Paulo Mazivila and his team to jointly begin “evacuating” the members of the National Team one by one, as they were able to secure any air tickets that could be arranged.

In the first phase, FIBA secured 15 air tickets that were “very urgent”. These included 12 athletes, the head coach, an assistant coach and a doctor. Later, another three were secured, now exceeding the limit that FIBA normally covers in terms of travel and accommodation. These included another assistant coach, a masseur and a federation director.

At 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, four athletes who were in Maputo were sent to Johannesburg, where one player (Célia Sumbana) was already in the process of obtaining an entry visa for Mexico. At 10:00 p.m., 11 more tickets were issued, bringing the total to 15. At 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, three more tickets were issued, raising Mozambique’s delegation to 18. At 6:55 a.m. on Sunday, all delegation members still in Maputo headed to Johannesburg.

At 7:00 p.m., divided into groups of five and 12 members each (without Tamara Seda, who remained in Maputo), on two different flights – one making stops in Atlanta (USA) and the other in Frankfurt (Germany) – the national team delegation left South Africa bound for Mexico City.

🚨 𝗙𝗜𝗕𝗔 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻’𝘀 𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗯𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗖𝘂𝗽 𝗣𝗿𝗲-𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁

Mozambique 🇲🇿 65 – 71 Mexico 🇲🇽

Despite leading during the 2nd quarter, Mozambique lost their first game of the pre-qualifiers. #FIBAWWC pic.twitter.com/yEHwaxUCg2

— AfricaBasket (@Africabasket1) August 20, 2024

🚨 FIBA World Cup 2026 Pre-Qualifying Tournament !

Tough start for Mozambique 🇲🇿 as they fall 65-71 to Mexico in their debut.

Next match: This Thursday against Montenegro! 🔜 #Basketball #MozambiqueBasketball pic.twitter.com/nGeTdk4GpX

— AfrikHoops (@BballinDay) August 20, 2024