Blaž Bergant the head coach of Slovenia U18 Women talks about his teams preparation

I started to work with this team four years ago as an assistant coach, but for the past tree years I was the head coach under the U16 programme. During my time heading the U16 programmes in 2005 and 2006 my assistant coaches were Damir Grgic (now head coach of Slovenia U-16) and Sašo Rebernik (now assistant coach of Slovenia U-16).

This year I moved up with this group into U18 and am assisted by Borut Fijavž and Boštjan Kočar. I still have Lidija Jazbec as physiotherapist from the U16 programme. This year we had opportunity to work with Slavko Vujin, who has designed a great fitness and condition programme for the girls. All members of coaching team have great knowledge in basketball and I trust them a lot.

Our final preparation period started during the last weekend in May, but before that, during the season, we had 5 training weekends in which 45 players were selected. We then watched the selected players all season long. The training weekend in themselves was more an opportunity for us to work closer with the girls on Individual skills and collective tactics, it was not a trail. We had to reduce this list to 16 in May when we started the final preparation.

As we are also preparing our players for the future we try to make our preparation as professional as possible, that is to say when in camp, two training sessions per day. The morning training was mainly conditioning and indivual skills while the evening sessions was dedicated to team play and systems. The morning sessions was conducted in 4 groups with each group spenting time with a trainer for a period of time before moving onto the next trainer. This keeps he players active and most importantly allows the coaches to work more closely with the players.

This year our squad is a mix of generations, Six 89 born player, Five 90 born players and one player from the 92 generation. We have attempted to fill all the position with quality players and as a result have a homogeneous squad who get also get on well together. We hope that these qualities are the ingrediates for a good tournument