Brazil’s gets ready to retain the crown | Handball Planet
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Brazil’s gets ready to retain the crown

With less than a month to go for a new World Championship, Morten Soubak has designated 15 of the 16 players that will represent Brazil in both the Four Nations tournament in home soil and in Denmark, where they will defend the title obtained in Serbia two years ago.

The last engagement before they take off to the Scandinavian country will be in the capital of Brazil, Brasilia, and Soubak hopes to make all the necessary adjustments to arrive in Europe in perfect shape: “These matches will help us to fully focus on the World Championship. We’ll continue to work on the aspects we worked on earlier this year during the training sessions in Sweden and during the friendlies with the team of Norway. We’re waiting for the IHF to make the final decisions regarding the new rules of the game, and if they’re officialized, we’ll have to make some changes in our training schemes”, he stressed on the Brazilian Handball Confederation website.

The Four Nations will be held between the 27th and 29th of November and will count with the presence of neighbors Argentina, who will also be one of the opponents in group C in Kolding, Slovenia and Serbia, with whom they will re edit the final of the last World Championship.

Ten of the athletes who lifted the trophy in Kombank Arena will be present in Denmark, one of them is captain Fabiana ‘Dara’ Diniz, who looks forward to polishing all the details before December 5th, when they debut against South Korea. In conversations with Handball­-Planet.com, this is what she said: “Playing at home is always nice because the Brazilian crowds are very passionate and cheerful, we just want to do it the best possible. Looking back to the matches prior to the last WC, we didn’t have the best results, but they were key to improve and adjust what we needed to adjust. Of course we want to win, but we’ll focus on finalizing the details and we hope that the people can enjoy a great tournament”.

Diniz, who missed the last Pan American Games due to a deep venous thrombosis, is now fully recovered and made her comeback nearly a month ago, when Brazil spent a whole week in Fuerteventura, Spain, together with Sweden in a mixed training phase. That also marked the return to the NT of the IHF World Player of the Year, Eduarda ‘Duda’ Amorim, who is now recovered from a torn ACL on her left knee.

Even though these are two very important comebacks, the Danish coach expressed that a few players “have unfortunately suffered injuries this year and some are still recovering”. He he hopes they can count on them as soon as possible, as the list still has an open spot for one last player. One of the ‘new faces’ on the team is the 19­year­old Bruna de Paula, who was part of the squads in the Youth and Junior WC last year, as well as the team who finished fourth in the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing. “Bruna is a very young player who has a very effective attack, she’s a player who can make the difference”.

This is not Soubak’s first bet on a young player; he also took a very young Hannah Nunes to Serbia, and the 20­year­old proved her value with very important interventions throughout the tournament, including two key goals in the final minutes of the medal match against the host nation.

When asked about the odds of repeating the title in Denmark, Diniz responded: “I think it is possible. We know it will be very difficult; getting there was hard and trying to repeat the title will be even harder, but we know our way. In my opinion lots of teams could make it into the top three and I think Brazil is one of them”.

This is the list of 15 players designated by Morten Soubak:

Goalkeepers: Bárbara Arenhart (Nykobing F. Handboldklub ­ DEN), Mayssa Pessoa (CSM Bucarest ­ ROM).
Wings: Alexandra Nascimento (Baia Mare ­ ROM), Célia Costa (Metodista/São Bernardo ­ BRA), Fernanda França (CSM Bucarest ­ ROM), Jéssica Quintino (MKS Selgros Lublin ­ POL).
Backs: Amanda Andrade (UnC/Concórdia ­ BRA), Bruna de Paula (São José ­ BRA), Deonise Fachinello (CSM Bucarest ­ ROM), Eduarda Amorim (Györ Audi ETO ­ HUN), Ana Paula Rodrigues (CSM Bucarest ­ ROM), Francielle Gomes da Rocha (Vegus/Guarulhos ­ BRA).
Line players: Daniela Piedade (Siófok KC ­ HUN), Fabiana Diniz (BBM Bietigheim ­ GER), Tamires Morena (Mosonmagyaróvári ­ HUN)

TEXT: LAURA AGENA

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