The team got a great moral dose after its victory over Jordan and Saudi Arabia (Talal Salman)
The players invited to the tournament all participated in the “third window” of the World Cup qualifiers hosted by Lebanon last week, during which the team achieved two victories over Jordan and Saudi Arabia, respectively, with the exception of Gerard Hadidian, who was excluded by a technical decision. Lebanon is competing in the Asian Championship in Group D, which also includes India, the Philippines and New Zealand. Lebanon will play its first match against the Philippines next Wednesday (16:00 Beirut time), then it will face New Zealand in the strongest group matches on Friday at the same time, and concludes the first round matches on Sunday (7:00 am Beirut time).
The 16 teams of the tournament are divided into four groups. In addition to Lebanon’s fourth group, the first group includes Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Australia and Indonesia, while the second includes Taiwan, China, South Korea and Bahrain, and the third group includes the teams of Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan and Syria. The champions of each group qualify for the quarter-finals, provided that the teams that occupy the second and third places play qualifying matches.
On paper, Lebanon’s chances of overtaking India and the Philippines seem easy, with the most difficult confrontation being with the powerful New Zealand. Looking at the teams in general, Lebanon seems close to going far in the continental championship, especially since the teams that can put pressure on it are New Zealand, Australia and China only, which are the elite clubs in the continents of Asia and Oceania.
At the technical level, there will be one difference in the continental championship from the qualifiers, which is the participation of Gerard Hadid, which will give more strengths under the basket. Hadidian can play in positions (4) and (5), i.e. under the basket, and thus constitutes an addition to both captain Ali Haider and naturalized player Jonathan Arledge. The team’s line-up is complete and the players took a large moral dose from the World Cup qualifiers, and therefore the possibility of them going far in Asia, specifically towards the final match, does not seem difficult, in order to forget the disappointment of the Asian Championship hosted by Beirut in 2017, in which the “Cedar Men” came out of the quarter-finals, He was then ranked eighth.