Former basketball superstar Dirk Nowitzki has arrived in Manila and is looking forward to the opening ceremony of the 19th World Championship this Friday.
“I’m excited to be back here. It will be a great World Cup with many great nations,” said 45-year-old Nowitzki, who acts as ambassador for the world association Fiba, after his arrival at the World Cup venue. When he was in Manila for the draw in April, the fans in the Philippines had cheered him loudly.
World Cup kick-off in the world’s largest indoor arena
The first two Group A games will take place on Friday at the 55,000-seat Philippine Arena in Bocaue, north of Manila. Angola will meet Italy first (10:00 CET), then (14:00 CET) hosts Philippines will face the Dominican Republic.
“I’m going to the opening game, where I hope there will be over 50,000 spectators. It’s going to be great,” said Nowitzki. The organizers expect a huge backdrop in the largest indoor arena in the world.
Originally, the entire final round should have taken place in the huge hall. However, in April of this year, Fiba switched and moved all games from the quarter-finals to the much smaller Mall of Asia Arena, which is also in the greater Manila area. The reason given by the association was the difficult logistics.
However, since the World Cup contenders Philippines, Indonesia and Japan had promised a World Cup record crowd, two games of the opening day were moved to the huge arena. Germany will play their preliminary and intermediate rounds in Okinawa, Japan.