European Prospects

After having talked already about the Interperformances Cup in London, the Onil tournament in Spain and the Urspring tour through the United States, there are two other important Youth events coming up this week.

First of all, there is probably the best U18 Club tournament that will be held: the 29th edition of the Hospitalet Tournament. This year’s edition will be played from the 3rd to the 5th of January and features some top flight talent from different Spanish and European Club teams. When you fly over the different rosters, there are some names that pop up like Dejan Musli and Branislav Djekic from FMP Zeleznik, Alejandro Hernandez from Barcelona, Tomislav Zubcic from Cibona Zagreb, David Jelinek, Alexander Andreev and Josep Franch from Joventut Badalona, Nikola Mirotic from Real Madrid or Bozhidar Avramov from Pamesa Valencia.

Of course a lot of other players will be present in L’Hospitalet but those names seem to be some of the most promising before the start of the action. I will try to keep you updated the best possible as I will not be in Spain but there is normally a very good media coverage as Canal+ Spain is broadcasting some of the games this year.

One the other hand, during the same days, there will be the Sarajevo Youth basketball Festival with compiles U18, U16, U14 and even U12 tournaments for both boys and girls. For this website, the U18 and in a minor scale the U16 boys tournaments will be the most interesting. For the U18 division, the participants will be Playoff Sarajevo, Ulm, Barking Abbey, Austrian U16 NT, Inzersdorf, Kamnik and ALBA Berlin. The last ones can probably be considered as favorites when you check how the locals and Barking Abbey played at last week’s Interperformances Cup in London.