Lebanon national team head coach Jad El Hajj spoke with Basketball Sphere about the upcoming FIBA World Cup 2023.
In the past year, Lebanon has made great successes on the international scene. They won a silver medal at the Asia Cup, and they also won a gold medal at the Arab Games for the first time. This conversation started on exactly that topic.
A difficult path
“Lebanon has gone through many difficult situations, that’s why we focus on basketball and sports to do something nice for our country. It was a little difficult at the beginning, but when you win trophies and medals you have a lot of confidence. Of course, you have to make sure that it doesn’t have a negative impact on you”.
Lebanon will play the first World Cup since 2010 and Jad El Hajj emphasized the importance of that.
“I was 20 years old in 2010 and I had a dream to take Lebanon to the World Cup. Especially after 2019 when we didn’t qualify. We only needed one game and we didn’t win. It was very difficult for all the fans, especially mentally. We set a goal to qualify now and we succeeded in that.”
Huge heart and great energy on the court
Lebanon will try to surprise everyone in the group and make a historic success in the upcoming championship. For them, qualifying for the Olympic Games in Paris would be as huge as the heart of the players trained by the young coach.
“The truth is that we don’t have many famous players, but what adorns us is the heart and energy we leave on the floor. We are focusing on that during the preparation for Jakarta.”
Extremely difficult group
In the group stage, Lebanon will compete against France, Canada and Latvia. One of the toughest groups in the championship, but Jad El Hajj says they don’t think much about their opponents.
“Very difficult group, but we go game by game. The first one is against Latvia, the second against France, the last is Canada. We will not think much about them. Each games lasts 40 minutes and we will prepare as best we can. Whatever the result, the most important thing is that we play hard and fight.”
Goals
The goal for Lebanon this year would be to qualify for the Olympic Games. This goal is not unattainable, but it is very difficult. For teams from Asia, there is only one ticket to Paris.
“Yes, that is the goal. We are competing with China, Japan and the Philippines. China has the best chance to qualify further because they are in an average group, but if we don’t qualify for the second group stage, the goal would be to qualify for the Olympics as the best Asian team.” – Jad El Hajj concluded with Basketball Sphere.