LIB - Lebanon play on despite conflict at home

MARIBOR (FIBA World Championship) - Lebanon coach Paul Coughter is grateful that basketball can be used as a diversion from conflict in his players’ homeland.

The American, who has brought the squad to Slovenia for a three-team tournament which starts today (Friday), has seen his men make phonecall after phonecall to check on loved ones back home.

It is a far from ideal scenario in terms of preparation for the FIBA World Championship, which tips off in Japan on August 19, but Coughter and his assistants are doing their best to keep their players focused on the job in hand.

“It's like a snowball rolling in the wrong direction," Coughter told PA Sport from Slovenia.

“It's a little difficult to gauge the guys. We don't want to push them too far, and we're trying not to do too much.

“They feel exactly how you'd expect them to feel. We try to keep it light.

“We try not to tell them too much unless it's pretty nasty - like the attack in Qana (where an Israeli air strike killed more than 54 Lebanese civilians, including at least 34 children).

“But we don't sit around rubbing our heads, hating the world. This is a distraction for them.”

Coughter’s problems are not confined to the carnage in the Middle East. He has a team with a key injury doubt, a willing but unavailable center, a lack of luggage and shortage of games to prepare.

Team captain Fadi El Khatib has been ill with fever for the past three days and the coach is being understandably cautious with him.

"He wants to play, but we don't want to push him too much," he said.

Another who wants to play is fit-again 38-year-old center Paul Khoury, who is stuck in the United States, but unable to meet up with his team-mates.

Coughter said: "He went home (to the US) with an injury and wanted his doctors in the States to look at it. He's fine now, but he couldn't get back to Lebanon because the airport was bombed. And we can't get him a new visa because his passport's not here.

"I wish I could get Scotty (from Star Trek) to beam him over here. I don't know where things stand. But I've stopped asking because I don't want to be disappointed any more. It doesn't look good.”

The team certainly misses the 2.12m, 136kg center, who was instrumental in slowing down China’s talisman, center Yao Ming, at the 2005 Asian Championships.

"(Fellow center) Joe Vogel and him were like big brothers to the other guys,” the coach continued. “They were leaders and protectors of the team.

“Joe really misses him because Paul was always boxing out the other team's biggest guy so Joe can rebound. People are wondering why Joe can't rebound as well now.”

The team was forced to travel by bus through Syria to a training camp in Jordan. They then flew to Turkey for the Efes World Cup, where they lost to Turkey and Slovenia and drew with Qatar as the teams decided against playing overtime.

Now the Lebanese have arrived in rain-swept Slovenia without all their bags.

Coughter said: "We were overweight flying to Slovenia from Turkey, so we had the great idea to leave half of our stuff in Ankara.

“Unfortunately it was our warm stuff and now I have no jacket, no slacks. This just adds misery to the situation.

“Still, people are in a lot worse shape then we are, so we shouldn't complain."

Despite all the issues, Coughter was sure that Lebanon would always have taken part in the FIBA World Championship.

"I think it's essential that we compete,” he said. “Lebanon needs to be seen, we're basically carrying the flag for the country.

“It's important that some team, even if that's the junior team, is there. We earned it and the people of Lebanon need something positive."

What would be even more positive is if Coughter masterminds a reversal in fortunes for a team that finished rock bottom at the FIBA World Championship four years ago.

But the New Yorker does not excude a great deal of confidence.

“We've had insufficient time to work together,” he sighed. “We played our first game against Turkey - ranked 18th in the world - in front of 8,000 fans. And they had already played eight games.

“Last summer we played seven games in eight days. And that gave us plenty of opportunities to make adjustments and test systems and combinations. This time we're going to have eight games total - and that's not enough.”

Lebanon’s first opponents in the Slovenian warm-up event are the hosts followed by Canada and then Venezuela.

The coach said the game against Venezuela will be crucial since the two face off in their Group A opener in Japan.

"The Venezuela game (at the World Championship) is our tournament. If we don't win that game, we don't need to play the rest of the tournament.

"But if we win, then we have three practice games against the number two, three and 10 ranked teams in the world (Serbia & Montenegro, Argentina and France, respectively) and then face Nigeria. And that won't be a problem either," Coughter added, with more than a hint of sarcasm.

After the tournament in Slovenia, the team flies back to Jordan on Monday before heading off to Manila on August 10 for two games against the Philippines and finally onto Japan on August 17.

By David Hein, PA Sport

Exclusively for FIBA