{"id":1038839,"date":"2026-09-02T12:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T12:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1038839\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T12:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T12:33:14","slug":"valkyries-stars-gabby-williams-salaun-zandalasini-enter-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1038839\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries stars Gabby Williams, Sala\u00fcn, Zandalasini enter World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Valkyries<\/a> are the WNBA\u2019s hottest team<\/a> entering the FIBA World Cup break, which will pause games in the league for more than two weeks.<\/p>\n

Now five members of the Golden State team will switch gears to compete on behalf of their countries in the tournament, which begins Friday in Berlin.<\/p>\n

Three of the Valkyries\u2019 top five scorers already missed Sunday\u2019s win over the Fire in Portland<\/a> as they prepare to be major contributors to their national teams. Gabby Williams<\/a> and Janelle Sala\u00fcn<\/a> were preparing to represent France, while Cecilia Zandalasini<\/a> will be a key player for Italy.<\/p>\n

France, which swept all five group-phase qualifying games in March, opens World Cup play against Hungary on Friday at noon. Sala\u00fcn led the French with 16.7 points and 6.3 rebounds per game in qualifying. She only played in three games as the host nation for the Lyon-Villeurbanne qualifiers easily booked its spot in the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Williams, the Reno-born star of the French team that took silver at the Paris Olympics, is back to help lead her mother\u2019s home country. She scored 11 points in the final four minutes of the 2024 gold medal game the U.S. won by a single point<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zandalasini leads Italy into its first worldwide competition since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. She was the Italians\u2019 top scorer with 13.8 points per game in qualifying as they won four of five games, losing only to the U.S. and beating Spain and host Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

The scoring trio won\u2019t be the Valkyries\u2019 only representation in Germany: head coach Natalie Nakase will be an assistant on the United States coaching staff and rookie Miela Sowah, who scored her first WNBA basket Sunday night, is on the Australian roster. Sowah did not play for the Opals in their qualifying tournament in Istanbul but she was added to the roster last week as an injury replacement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just excited to learn, represent the USA, and then get to see Gabby, Ceci, Ja, Miela over there,\u201d Nakase told reporters in Portland after the Valkyries\u2019 win. \u201cJust super excited to be around some of the best players in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kokoro Tanaka, a third-round pick of the Valkyries in the draft this spring, will represent Japan. As the San Francisco Standard\u2019s Jane Kenny<\/a> noted, Golden State retains her draft rights if she makes the jump to the league.<\/p>\n

The Valkyries could have had more players representing the Bay Area in Berlin: Center Iliana Rupert played in qualifying for France but has missed this WNBA season because she is pregnant.<\/p>\n

All five nations tied to the Valkyries will play Friday, beginning with Japan at 2:30 a.m. Pacific. The U.S. and Italy are both in Group D and will face each other at 11:45 a.m. Sunday. TNT\/Turner Sports and HBO Max will be airing the tournament.<\/p>\n

As for the players who aren\u2019t heading to Germany, there will be some downtime. Nakase said she gave the players some freedom to do what they need over the first few days of the pause, knowing that there will be a physical and mental push to make when they reconvene to build up to the final week of the WNBA regular season.<\/p>\n

The first game back is Sept. 18 and will be against the same Portland team, whom the Valkyries will face twice in the final four games, including twice in the same week.<\/p>\n

Golden State is just two games behind the Minnesota Lynx for the top record and No. 1 playoff spot in the league, and two games ahead of the Las Vegas Aces in third place. The Valkyries don\u2019t hold a tiebreaker over either team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they come back, the mindset of being ready for playoffs,\u201d Nakase said of her emphasis to the players. \u201cI would say just make sure they\u2019re clear \u2014 their mind is clear, because we\u2019re going to go deeper, obviously, in terms of our game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Valkyries are the WNBA\u2019s hottest team entering the FIBA World Cup break, which will pause games in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1038840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[1339,15173,276,2473,1362,1370,15178,2750,15180,62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":["post-1038839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-basketball","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-inside-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-peninsula","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-county","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1038840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}