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COSTA RICA |
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Another PATHF Tournament in Costa Rica:
Where are the Americans?
John Ryan (Blog)
The Pan American Team Handball Federation’s
(PATHF) Junior Women’s Division 1
Championship are currently taking place in
San José. Through 2 match days, Mexico and
the Dominican Republic look to be the class
of this (Under 20) competition, while
relative newcomers Columbia, Costa Rica and
Guatemala appear to be at least one step
down in class.
Barring a major change in performance Mexico
and the Dominican Republic should advance to
the PATHF Junior Championship next year
where they will take on Brazil, Argentina,
Greenland, Uruguay, Puerto Rico and Chile.
The top 3 teams from that tournament will
then advance to the Junior World
Championships next summer in South Korea.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Women’s team consisting of
players ranging in ages from 14-25 traveled
to Poland where they took on the Polish
Women’s National Team and participated in an
under 21 tournament against Norway, the
Czech Republic and Poland.
Predictably, for a very inexperienced team
taking on quality competition, the scores
ranged from ugly (33-12 against the Poland
Jrs) to downright brutal (59-11 to Norway).
While, some might argue that those scores
indicate that the trip was a waste of time,
I don’t fall into that camp. As I wrote back
in 2006 -link-, even the worst blowout is a
valuable learning experience for the players
of the losing team and nations also get a
very clear benchmark of where they stand and
how far they need to go.
That being said, however, when the gap
becomes too great there are diminishing
returns for the losing side. Ideally, a trip
will include a match or two against top
sides, as well as matches against
comparative foes. This is why I’m a big fan
of the current World Championships format
which gives sides like Australia a “lesson”
during group play, but then gives them an
opportunity to compete on a more equal
footing in the President’s Cup.
Arguably, the ongoing PATHF tournament in
Costa Rica would have been just such a
tournament for the U.S. In all likelihood,
the U.S. would have been smoked by Mexico
and the Dominican Republic, but they would
have been competitive against the other 3
sides. These tournaments would also have
given the U.S. players a taste of what
competition is like in Latin America. On
down the line as the U.S. improves one can
also hope that the U.S. will qualify for
World Junior and Youth championships where
players get great exposure to scouts for
professional clubs.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty well
documented that I’m not a big fan of PATHF.
But, I still have the same questions that I
raised last month when the U.S. didn’t
participate in the Men’s senior Div 1
Championships. Except in this case an even
stronger argument could be made that the
ongoing “youth movement” would have been
served pretty well by this tournament.
USA Team Handball is expected to release
some of its planning documentation in the
near future. Here’s hoping it clearly
explains what the grand strategy is in terms
of which teams will play where and why?
Canadian side note: According to the
Canadian Federation Facebook page, Canada
didn’t even get an invite to this
tournament. It should also be noted, though,
that they probably wouldn’t have
participated anyway due to their current
focus on the Sr. Programs. |
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