JEDDAH, 31 July — Shell Turbochargers, the powerhouse of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), which went into a practice session yesterday after their arrival on Friday night, will play three matches this week at the Jeddah Sports Center, Makkah Road.
“Ours is a goodwill mission having come on an invitation from the Saudi National Basketball Association and will play three matches this week as part of a goodwill tournament,” Bobby Villarosa, manager of the visiting team, told Arab News at the Red Sea Palace Hotel.
Eighteen-member visiting team includes 12 players, three coaches and two staff members aside from the manager. They play against the British National Team tomorrow, and two matches against the Saudi Junior National Team on Thursday and Friday. All the matches start at 9 p.m. PBA is the premier league in the Philippines.
“We won the All Filipino Cup championship in Manila in 1999,” he said, adding that part of their team was Bobby Ray Parks, who has won the best import recognition for seven times. In fact, each team in the Philippines is allowed to get a foreign player.
“This is the first time for our team to play in the Kingdom,” Villarosa said. “Basically, our objective is to further promote the game and develop the Saudi National Juniors Team,” he added.
Visiting coaches include Joey Guanio, Jeggs Mindoza and Hercules Callanta.
Villarosa said since the inception of PBA in 1985, they won five championships. “PBA, a local commercial league, is the Philippine version of National Basketball Association (NBA) of America.
Ali Sanhani, a retired Saudi national team player and captain of the Ittihad Club’s basketball team, said: “No doubt, basketball is becoming popular in this part of the world. Only last month, Ittihad team made its mark as a winning team in the Asian Basketball Conference (ABC) in Dubai.
According to Sanhani, Saudi basketball teams are divided into two divisions, 10 teams in each division. Plus there are 20 other teams. All of them take part in the Saudi basketball league for the “diamond” title and best team cup each year.
Asked whether the Saudi basketball teams visited the Philippines, Sanhani said: “We went to Manila two or three times. We like Filipino skills in tackling the ball and there is much to gain from their techniques.”
Both Sanhani and Villarosa made an appeal to local Filipinos and other basketball enthusiasts to watch the visiting team in action. “Especially challenging and interesting will be our match against the British National Team,” Villarosa added.
Aside from playing against the Shell Turbochargers, the British team will play two other matches against the Saudi national teams.
