By Bullen Bala
The South Sudan Basketball Federation (SSBF) has appointed Alberto Antuna as the new head coach of the Bright Star Women’s National Team. With coaching experience spanning Germany, Spain, and Mexico, Antuna brings a wealth of international expertise and leadership to South Sudan’s growing basketball scene, the SSBF announced.
“We are fortunate to be able to appoint a coach of Alberto’s caliber to lead the National Women’s Team. His experience in Africa, across different regions, and at high-level continental FIBA stages, gives me great condense in his ability to develop the women’s team,” Luol Deng, President, SSBF, stated in a press release.
Meanwhile, Alberto Antuna said he was happy to be on the team and pledged to make the South Sudanese women’s basketball team famous.
“I am extremely grateful to Luol and the SSD federation for trusting me with this exciting challenge. I’m joining a federation that has been doing things brilliantly in recent years, and especially as it dazzled the world of basketball in the last years with the men’s National team. Now is the time to build the same with the women’s team,” he said.
According to him, his goal is to establish a brand and work to assemble the top athletes to represent South Sudan internationally.
Additionally, Alberto has an impressive track record in Africa, having managed Senegal’s 2024 Olympic qualifying squad and Uganda’s national teams in the Afrobasket 2023.
Antuna will prepare the team for the upcoming Zone 5 2025 Women’s Afrobasket qualifiers tournament.