CAB player and coach history will guide the Men's Team

The Board of Directors of the CAB, SAD, has just announced the return of coach João Paulo Silva (‘Juca’) to the club to guide the Men's Senior Team. Juca will train the team of Friends who will be involved in the Professional Basketball League dispute, thus resuming a professional link to the Nazaré club. The new coach will be joined by Carlos Sousa, thus repeating a duo that brought several titles to the club of Nazareth. Juca has been attached to the club since its founding in November 1979, having defended the jersey of Friends for eighteen years, in all age groups of competition. At the age of 15, he began his activity as a coach at the Minibasket at the CAB. He always maintained the coaching activity in parallel with that of the player, playing the CAB coaching role for approximately thirty years. He has already trained all CAB ranks in both genres and has also been a regional selector in all ranks. As a player, Juca was national champion of the III Division, with its rise to Division II and Division I. He was a coach of the Friends in the 1st National Division and became a coach of the professional team that first participated in the Portuguese Basketball League (Liga Expo) in 1997/1998. From the extensive curriculum that has accumulated over the years at the service of the CAB, the following records stand out: Today, at the age of 47, Juca is a professor of Physical Education at Francisco Franco High School. About the return to the club that saw him grow up in basketball, whether as a player or as a coach, the new coach of the Men's Team comments: “First of all, it means resuming an activity for which I feel a huge passion: leading teams. Of course, this satisfaction has a special meaning because it is in the CAB. There's a huge sentimental connection, because it was in this club that I did much of my sports and social training. Here I learned the true dimension of humility, friendship, convenience for respect and appreciation in relation to the personal recognition of our work.” As for the project he will lead in the Professional Team and the entire male Basketball Friends sector, CAB coach notes: “We will work towards developing a program that aims to create a formative dynamic. To promote the identification of values that facilitate convergence between the permanent formation of athletes and the maintenance of a high competitive level. This is the central idea for the male CAB team to be, in reality, one of the main goals to be achieved by our young athletes in their training process.” For the CAB coach, “The work developed in the senior team should be noticeable to all coaches and their athletes. We want the reference team to be an open space for all our athletes. It should function as the natural extension of the course developed by the training. Surely in parallel we will know how to establish a set of sports commitments to be reached and which will sustain a high and attractive competitive level.”