I was watching ART's coverage of the draw for
Indianapols 2002 and although the announcer was obviously
confused between China and Lebanon, when it was time to
decide on Lebanon's ticket, it was a very cheerful mood
as we saw Tony Barood first correcting the obvious
mistake of the announcer and then guessing it right with
the "preferred" group for Lebanon, audiblly and
visibly encouraged by the whole attending "sympathizing"
public ("You want this group, don't you?). <br><br>The
"group" we are talking about is a very feasable group
indeed containing Brazil (admittedly the toughest
ticket), but also Puerto Rico (with at least some American
level players) and Turkey very similar to basketball
here. We couldn't have asked for more.<br><br>Just tell
that to the Algerian team that has to tackle not only
the German national team, the mighty and very tall
China team with Wang ZhiZhi around but also the
almighty USA in its own turf and you know how lucky we
Lebanese got on our first ticket to this World Chamionship
event.<br><br>For curiosity Yugoslavia, Spain, Canada and Angola
are bundled in one group, as are Argentina, Russia,
New Zealand and Venezuela.<br><br>All it remains for
our national team is to prepare in a systematic and
serious manner to be able to qualify to the next round,
an achievement in itself. A good research on what we
have to face might also help... It wouldn't be that
difficult to check. Turks cover a lot of their games on
sattelite TV and Puerto Rico has been tested on many
occasions and its strengths and weaknesses would be easy to
analyse.<br><br>Let's hope we start on a good footting though by
stopping all present or possible future bickering on who
should actually be on the list and who cannot and how
biased the choice will be. This is a futile discussion
that leads nowhere but bad feelings. <br><br>I for one
will trust whatever the national coach and his
assistants come up with. What I would insist upon though is
that the technical staff make the best in possible
match-ups against the Turkish or the Puerto Rican national
team players rather than who does best here locally
which means not much really. Thus the need of
researching and doing our homework long before the waited
date instead of the futile effort of "pleasing" the
most vocal components of the local partisan crowds...