True some of our youngsters have taken all the
focus like Ahmad Ozeir, Rony Fahed, Ali Fakhreddine
(thankfully he has made the cut for Petrovic's taste, which
obviously Bellan and Ibrahim haven't been able to do), or
Bachir Ammoury (who wasted a full year in Hekmeh before
finding his proper place and appreciation in Anibal where
he has become a constant contributor) or Hekmeh's
Roy Samaha and these unique players richly deserve
this notoriety no doubt, but the majority of very
eligible junior players have no routine platform in which
they can show their talents and improve their skills
in professional games and on a regular
basis.<br><br>Some juniors wait for ages and then just lose interest
and give up. This process becomes even more accute
with the allowing of three foreigners (translation -
lesser chance for our boys) or the import of
"ready-made" bi-national players imported from Canada, USA
etc. or through naturalizations. Of course this is an
irreversible trend. Clubs always search for the best players
and they usually look outside their own "home"
roster. <br><br>Thus naturally the biggest losers become
the regular die-hard local boys who waste most of
their meaningful basketball time in their own clubs
just continuing to believe they will have their place
in the club they love and are dedicated to, just to
be disappointed time and again.<br><br>What could be
done though, and there is no lack of talent here in
Lebanon, on the contrary there is a lot of demand I assure
you among players, amongst their parents, schools and
fans, is to create obligatorily juniors teams for each
first division club and use the 16-20 age group players
in a proper championship set-up on a regular basis.
Each first division team would have to present also
its juniors roster. Juniors game would precede the
same matchup for the main team. <br><br>Thus fans
would get two games for the price of one and our great
number of younger players would accumulate a more
meaningful experience than just to sit on the bench and if
they are "lucky", I am saying if, to get a few seconds
play in "safe" matches towards the end. Tell this to
some coaches and they would respond of course, because
each game is undecided till the last second, so the
only experience they are ready to give their juniors
is for them to show their skills in warm-ups and
preparation and then pack and go home with no
play...<br><br>Is there a justification for a juniors championship?
Sure there is. FLB makes some regular age group
tournaments but this is not what I mean. I mean proper
championship with crowds and media coverage.. the whole lot. A
Junior's year-round championship would reverse this trend
and make a lot of good and make our juniors mature
better and "changing of the color" between the older and
newer age a more natural process.<br><br>It will also
help why not in creating chances for more talents to
be discovered in the process for our clubs and for
our national teams. A final solution would be to
create a full professional league of say 6 teams and
create concurrently a viable and very active local
all-Lebanese league where we would have meaningful competition
for more of our local talents.