Sentence examples for before the tournament when from inspiring English sources

"So to do that just before the tournament when we've probably got to do it again for a semi-final spot is pretty important.

Moises Alou, the general manager for the Dominican Republic team, said he cringed in the days before the tournament when he would see a player's number on his cellphone.

One was on show the week before the tournament, when the discredited and dysfunctional executive committee sat onstage at Fifa's Congress as corruption claims besieged the walls of a São Paulo conference centre.

Before the tournament, when asked about his team's chances, Klinsmann drew controversy when he said, quite sensibly, "For us now talking about winning a World Cup, it is just not realistic.

Queiroz, who speaks five languages including Spanish, guided South Africa to last year's World Cup, but left before the tournament when a technical director was appointed with the power to pick the team.

"We had to change our manager just a few months before the tournament," when the increasingly erratic Jõao Saldanha was replaced by Mário Zagallo, "but the players trusted each other totally.

Syracuse's latest off-court concern broke before the start of the tournament when academic problems ended the season for the starting center Fab Melo.

Officially seeded second, Federer became the top seed left in the tournament when his archrival, Rafael Nadal, the top-seeded Spaniard who beat Federer in last year's final, withdrew because of knee problems shortly before the tournament.

"We haven't been a really good shooting field-goal team for a team that's won 26 games," Alford said before the conference tournament, when asked for a scouting report on his own team.

Maryland 16-100, 6-7), whose hopes of making the N.C.A.A. tournament are tenuous, will get one last chance at a quality victory before the conference tournament when it visits No. 21 North Carolina (18-6, 9-4) today.

Blake got a break before the tournament began when his scheduled first-round opponent, seventh-seeded Carlos Moya of Spain, withdrew because of a sprained ankle.