Country: Brazil

Coach: Antonio Djandro Ricardo Nascimento

Key Players: Aldrin Andrade (Specialist), Alvaro Bruno (Right Wing)

Qualification for Mauritius 2017: Pan American Championship (Asuncion, PAR) – Winners

Overview:

As it happens with their senior beach handball teams, the U17 Brazil men’s side want to become a world powerhouse. “The strength of our team comes from the way our players perceive this handball modality. Actually, some of our athletes were never indoor players, they grew with beach handball. This identity and compromise can help us,” explains the Pan American Championship winners’ head coach, Djhandro Ricardo.

On 21-25 January this year, the Brazilians played their continental tournament in Asuncion, Paraguay. They beat Venezuela, Paraguay, Colombia, Uruguay, Ecuador and Puerto Rico in the phase group but were defeated by Argentina 2:0 in an emotional game. Once in the semi-finals, they won 2:1 versus Venezuela and finally took revenge of the Argentinians in the gold medal match with a 2:1 victory.

“We understand that this is part of a consolidation process in which we must find athletes to meet the expectations of our senior national team,” says Ricardo. But that doesn’t mean they don’t aim high ahead of the U17 IHF Beach Handball World Championship: “We must be focused all the time. Our goal is to reach the top, as we dream with qualifying for the Youth Olympic Games in 2018. Becoming the World Champions is in our minds 24 hours a day.”

At Mauritius 2017, Brazil will play Chinese Taipei, Pakistan and the hosts Mauritius in Group A. “The difficulty of our group at the World Championship is unknown for us. But we want to do our best. There are no inferior opponents.” Coach Ricardo is proud to say they “had the chance of observing many young players all around Brazil, and that was a key thing to create the group we are training with now.”

Mauritius 2017 (men’s) – Group A: Brazil, Chinese Taipei, Pakistan and Mauritius.

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IHF Website & Social Media:

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