Costa Rica's Youth League championship starts its engines

COSTA RICA — The Costa Rican Basketball Federation (FECOBA) is working on 2019 to build the federative tournaments that will take place during the whole year and throughout the country, in an ambitious plan whose intention is to gradually integrate the largest number of people, sports committees, and associations, as well as the private enterprise.

The first meeting of the FECOBA National League's Youth Championship for the 2019 basketball season was at Gimnasio Nacional, featuring at least 30 coaches and directives from all areas of Costa Rica, belonging to categories U8, U10, U12 and U14. FECOBA used the opportunity to share some modifications the tournament will feature in the current year.

The U8 and U10 categories will be played under the basketball festival systems, with a hybrid of the 3x3 modality. Meanwhile, the 10 and 12-year-old players will participate in the tournament as it’s been traditionally played in recent years.

“There are more and more teams with other options for our national basketball's wellbeing. There will be a new 3x3 category for children aged 8 and 10, as well as the official law for Mini Basketball. With the new regulation changes for national games, there will be many more game time,” said Guillermo Durán, member of the Youth League’s Commission.

Some new members are getting for their debut, as is the case of Barva, from the Heredia Province, who are beginning their experience in the Youth League.

Floribeth Vargas, the basketball school’s representative, commented: “We have children from the ages of 8 to 18; they're practically 63 children. The idea is for the number to grow and that Barva develops these children so that we can eventually build teams.”

Patriarca San Ramón, a team that has significant experience in federative tournaments, sees in good light the changes that will begin in 2019.

“We will participate with our basketball program, with children 8 to 18. I have to take all the suggestion of the new changes to the directives,” added Miguel Rodríguez, Patriarca's coach, and representative of the Western area.

Another project that was presented was real-time ranking, a solution that comes after years of trying to take to the next level other important issues, such as game statistics.

In 2018, 182 teams of all categories of all areas of Costa Rica participated in the Championship that held approximately a thousand games in the festival format, taking place in the different teams’ home courts.

FECOBA will also certify private tournaments with the objective that, in the months that there are no federative tournaments, there is still competition and activity throughout the year.

“The idea is to have more than 200 teams playing in the Youth League and increase our impact range. The new format follows the FIBA guidelines to set in motion Mini Basketball as effectively as possible. Our plan is to begin the championship in March and end it in November with a great Final, which is something we've done before,” said Ignacio Montero, the Federation's spokesperson.

With this, the Federation believes it’ll have a year even better than the one before. The Minor League is currently preparing all the final necessary details to start in March the best basketball tournament in Costa Rica. The National Youth League Championship will have its great opening at Gimnasio Nacional de La Sabana, in a date that's still to be announced. It’ll certainly be an unforgettable festival to jumpstart the path to a new horizon, in order to reach our objectives together— and always guided by the motto “Together we are more.”

FIBA