Hi guys!
First of all, thank you to all the managers that are training young lebanese players
The first weeks have shown that most of the players are correctly trained and you managers are understanding.
First point, let's talk about our pool in Asian Championship. For a small country like Lebanon, we needed a miracle to reach the second round. There were two groups in our group. NZ, Australia, Philippines and Indonesia were huge favourites. Pakistan, UAE and Lebanon were outsiders.
My aim was to finish higher than UAE and Pakistan, it meaned to beat them. In my mind, Indonesia was less strong than the 3 other big, so, if there were a very small chance to go to second round, it would mean winning against them.
NZ, Australia and Philippines, we couldn't do anything, except trying players and being patient. I decided to CRUNCH Indonesia, but because of the injuries of Abu Jibara, Haddad and El-Hadded, and our lack of endurance, we failed. Not so far (ok, they TIE
), but not enough.
Our game against Pakistan: fortunately, he didn't crunch or defend 3-2. Our C and PF are not good enough to play inside tactics. So, as usual or almost, we played Motion. Because of the shape and training, I decided to put Haddad in the starting five instead of Abu Jibara. And he has been one of our great guys (but we'll talk about the players later). For once, we finished a game better than we started it!
But according to shapes, DMI, salaries and what i know about pakistanese players, we had to win, and we did it. It was difficult, but it was our first victory
Against UAE: we are lucky, this team doesn't have any manager, he may have been banned. So, has they have a better team than us, we crunched and played on our qualities: passing and shooting. They attacked outside, perfect, we have a good outside defense. It was really difficult but we did a great last quarter.
Finally! With two victories, we are 5th of our pool. We have good circumstances, but we did it