WBSC Women's World Cup Group B - Head Coaches' Quotes: "We’re ready," says David Santos, coach of Puerto Rico, favourites for the tournament

WBSC Women's Softball World Cup Group B favourites Puerto Rico are "ready" and have done the proper preparation according to head coach David Santos. Speaking on the eve of the five day tournament, which starts on Tuesday, Santos said after winning the Central American and Caribbean Games his team's focus now is on booking a ticket to the WBSC Women's Softball World Cup Finals 2024.

"Our only goal here is to advance to the World Cup Finals,” Santos said. “It has been the most complete preparation process for our team. We spent four day training and playing in USA; then we participated in the Central American and Caribbean Games, where we played five games and won the gold medal; and finally we played five or six games in Barcelona. So we’re ready, we’ve done the job… We’ve had time to adapt to the time zone, and now we are only waiting for Opening Day.”

Other quotes from David Santos (PUR):

“At this moment, our main strength is pitching. We have a really good mix between two veteran pitchers, with many international tournaments played, and three young pitchers that have played in World Cups and international events, also winning medals with our National Team. So this mix is our main strength.”

“The new format is excellent. It gives more teams the opportunity to test themselves at the world level, so they can work on their own development back in their countries. This is going to help more countries to enter and move up in the World Rankings and will make the competition tighter in the next years.”

Ferenc Jongejan (NED):

"Our preparation has been good. We had the chance to play a series against the Czech Republic in June and Chinese Taipei came over early so we played against them. We had an invitational tournament in Prague as well, pretty good games, and played Australia as well. We played a lot of games, it’s hard to play a lot of international games at a high level so that’s what we look for. We got an opportunity to do that. We feel as we’re good to go."

"I know there’s a bunch of teams well prepared like we are, it’s going to be an exciting tournament with exciting softball. Obviously we have the goal to get there next year and that’s what we’re aiming for. The main thing is we want to play good softball and if we play good softball then we can just look at the result. We have to be happy with the result because we did everything we could."

"For most of the girls and the staff its our first tournament at this level. We are European champions and now we have the chance to see where we are at the world level. It’s exciting. We’ve done well in Europe and as reigning Europe champions next step is to see where we are at the world level."

"We had a big disappointment in 2019 when we didn’t qualify for Tokyo. After that we started rebuilding but basically with the same core of the team while we had a different programme, different attitude, different culture. In a way we are rebuilding and in a way we are continuing with some very good players. So it’s a good mix and with the last World Cup so long ago it makes this one more exciting. "

Key Links

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12 players to watch
By the Numbers
Where to watch
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Spain, like Ireland and Italy, is a first time host of a WBSC tournament
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Jorge Lamas (CUB):

“We’ve had a strong preparation. Our goal is to advance to the Finals. We had the Central American and Caribbean Games a week ago, and we played at a high level there."

"We played a tournament in Barcelona these past days and we didn’t play so well there. Our defence and offence were not at their peak. But we keep training and hopefully we’re back at our highest level.”

“We haven’t seen play some of the teams, like the Netherlands. We faced China and they are a strong team, as well as Puerto Rico. We haven’t seen Spain either, but we know they have a strong team. All teams are good here, we cannot give it for granted against anyone.”

Orel Morales (ESP)

“For us is a new experience, it’s been a long time since we played the World Cup for the last time, so it’s going to be a challenge. Our first step is to try to make the top four into the playoffs, to remain in the hunt to earn a ticket to the Finals. And the to battle for one of the two tickets. It’s not easy, but anything can happen in a head to head match.”

“The preparation was not the best, to be honest. We’ve hosted a training camp in Easter. We gathered team a week ago and we played a few games against the Netherlands here in Valencia.”

“The new format is interesting, it’s important to promote our game and make more popular, reaching more places and people and demonstrating the you can play softball without a great investment. Trying to bring the sport closer to people… I think it’s the right direction for the WBSC.”

Being hosts: “I think it’s going to encourage our team. We had the experience of playing at home soil last year at the European Championship, a great experience with all the fans supporting the team, which helped a lot. I’m sure they are also going to help this team. Our team opens the tournament with no pressure, we’ve been away from the World Cup for a long time, so having the home fans with us is going to be an incentive to reach very complicated goals, but we think our players can do it.”

Changdong Tang (CHN):

"We had national tournaments, and that’s from where we have chosen the players from. Since then we had only two weeks to prepare but from that time the players have come together and shown great unity and spirit so I’m pleased with how the preparation has been."

"Having prepared well, we come here aiming for the top two positions to claim a ticket for the World Cup Finals next year."

"The tournament format is very good, very helpful for all the teams and for the growth of softball due to the high quality of games and the possibility to play our game in new locations.".

Collen Dipone (RSA):

"The preparation was a bit difficult but we managed since it was off season. We managed to have our team manaded by the provinces. We set up a programme where the provinces will prepara the individual, one province will have five players, the other nine and the nine would meet. We had two weekends when we had friendlies with local tems so at least we have some game time together."

"We have the same team from the qualification tournament but my squad is mainly a development side from the U-18s and U-19s. In saying that, whilst we're on a learning curve, we're also looking to challenge and compete as much as we can and put in a better showing than previous appearances in a WBSC World Cup (finished 15th in their last four editions 2018, 2012, 2010, 2006)."

"We have been in touch with Botswana a lot during the Group A tournament so that I could give some feedback and advice and also learn from them ahead of our Group B campaign and I'm looking to receiving the same from [Botswana coach] Mosupakwena Ross this week."