The Israel Under-20 Women’s National Team open up their European Championship this Saturday at 5:30 PM in Portugal with a group stage game against Spain. The team is made up of players from a variety of age groups, from 17 to 20 years old in order to put together some of the country’s best talent in women’s basketball today.

Ahead of the championship, The Sports Rabbi spoke with not only Head Coach Tal Natan who also guided the Under-19 squad at the World Cup but also several prominent players from the team some of which have already participated in some of this summer’s tournaments.

“The U20 is really an adult team,” Natan began. “Many have already played in a professional league so it’s not a girls team. However, this team has a bunch of players who featured on the Under-18 and Under-19 teams and it’s an interesting mix. We didn’t have much time to get them all together but our role is to turn them into a winning national team and that’s our goal, to be a winning team.
 
“We don’t have much time to work on this but we will look at how to best put the puzzle together as it’s a piece from here and a piece from there. But we have to make this into a nice picture which is what we will do. The staff and the players are all very talented and we will make sure to put together a team that will be successful.”

Gal Raviv who starred for Israel at the World Championship shared her thoughts on playing in her second competition and one again with the same coach, “I’m feeling great and I am not thinking much about the World Championship right now as I am trying to concentrate as much as possible on the European Championship. I’ll be playing with some veterans on this team and that will be tough but we’ll all do our best as we have a team that will bring us together and help us do the best that we can and that’s what we’ll do.”

Maya Zilbershlag was the scoring leader at the Under-18 European Championship, however the team under the direction of Head Coach Shira HaElion did not have much success and did not win a game as the young blue-and-white dropped to Division B next year.

“I am disappointed with that championship and I thought we would come and be more prepared. The preparation was difficult and we did not have enough time to prepare well enough for this competition. I do think that here with the U20’s we will try to do our best and I believe that our team is pretty good as there are many talented players here. We need to learn to play together because we do not have much time and we will do our best to get as far as we can.”

For Hodaya Kabeda, unlike Zilbershlag and Raviv, this will be her first tourney of the summer, “Wow! Honestly, I’m really excited as this is going to be my last championship after being on all of the national teams over the years.”

Kabeda also spoke about having so many different ages on this team, “It feels very strange because I’ve made 6 national teams and on all the national teams we were simply just that specific age group whether it was the Under-16 or Under-18. Suddenly there are 16-year olds here while I am a few years older than them. It’s a little strange to me, but their talent is very important and very critical to the team. All in all we don’t really feel the age gap.”

“Everyone welcomed me really well,” Zilbershlag who just turned 17 years old said about the matter. “They are all really my friends some of which I played with on other national teams. As a team and as individuals, I think that slowly we will start to understand how everything fits together because it is a new team with some who have never played with one another. I am sure that the coach will put together some very good lineups and we will manage to do the best that we can with what we have.”

Natan, who coached the Israel Under-19 team at the World Cup knows that this was a milestone for the country, but it is also now in the past, “On a personal level I was very happy that we were able to win some games at the World Cup but above all I was happy for women’s basketball here in Israel. We never had a women’s team that was in the top 10 and here we world championship. But we shouldn’t just talk about what was but what will be in the future.”
 
“Sure the tournament was exciting and it will go down in Israeli women’s basketball history but the goal is to look ahead and to make sure we can do our best at the Under-20. The players understand that their career isn’t just based on one day but on continuing to build and move forward to keep reaching the highest heights that they can and that is what we are trying to do with this team.”

Raviv who was on that team added, “I take the World Championship as an experience, another one for my career. These were more games that I can go back to and watch and learn from. I definitely think that this competition made us learn about ourselves and we also improved. At teh U20 there are some very tough teams and it’s a tough crossover to make, but we’re also a different team and we’ll give it our all.”

The bottom line is that winning is the name of the game and that is the goal that Natan has out down for this team, “We are looking at this tournament game by game with the goal to win each one. We will go into the first game, then it’s the getting through the first stage and then the knockout games. The mission in front of us is crystal clear, we want to win games. As for the results, these tournaments have their own dynamics and it doesn’t matter when or where the game will be if it’s in the morning, afternoon or evening or on land, in the air or in the water the goal is always the same; to win.”