To be clear, Vukosa is not the youngest player on the team. One of the starting guards is more than three months younger. All in all, there are five 2008 born players on the team so they are playing for the team's division status in next year's tournament as well. Only two players were eligible to return from last year's bronze medal winning squad. The top five teams in this tournament qualify for next year's U17 World Cup.
Yes, I stand corrected! Olivia's birthday is September 7, 2008 and Majstorovic's birthday was in December, 2008.
I may have been looking at an earlier version of the Croatian Roster ( pre-tournament) or I was confused with
the European style of listing dates, e.g. 7/9/2008 for Olivia = September 7 , not July 9th. So, can we
agree that she is the SECOND youngest? Somewhat obsessively I check the rest of the tournament
players. Of 159 players who played at least 0.5 minutes, only 9 ( I think ) are younger than OLIVIA. There
are quite a few born in 2008, but not so many in the later part of the year, 2008. The only younger player
who comes anywhere close to Olivia in EFFICIENCY rating is Mia Luzgina of Lativa with a rating of +10.5.
Olivia's efficiency average for two games is 28.5. Mia is a point guard , I believe, who averages 7 points per game
with 3.5 assists per game. Mia's birthday is October 6, 2008. For completeness, Portugual has two
14 year old players who are younger that Olivia. Portugal appears to have the youngest player,
Mafalda Monteiro, 5'10", who was born on December 31, 2008 !! Mafalda has an efficiency rating of "NIL" , zero.
On to Israel at 7 am today. All the stats are in Croatia's favor, except free throw percentage and
Israel committing fewer fouls. I'll admit some of the differences are rather minimal. But as GENO
has said: " BUT WE HAVE VUKOSO" ( Taurasi)!! z