Basketball Expert: All focus should be on the national team advancing to the World Cup
Assadullah the Great In an interview with IRNA on Tuesday, he added: “In the past few days, according to the current situation, to a certain extent, all Iranian basketball was affected by the federation’s election assembly, and the national team was no exception to this rule.” I think mentally, the minds of the nationalists were involved in the election, but it was an experience to learn from.
He also referred to the match between Iran and Kazakhstan in the second qualifying window of the World Cup and the defeat of the national team, noting: “We did well in that match and we were ahead of the opponent until the third quarter, but we left the game a little early.” We had to increase the difference in points and then switch. But this is the sport, and after winning and losing, one can analyze what the consequences of the decisions made are; We went to the field with the same experience in Syria and you saw that the children also performed well.
Our country’s basketball expert also pointed out the absence of some influential players in the national team and said: “In these two matches, we did not have all our resources at our service, and maybe if those few people were added to the team, we would win today against Kazakhstan and the World Cup.” We spoke differently. Behnam Yakhchali who took the corona and Hamed Haddadi and Samadnikhah were not with us in this window for various reasons. These are important issues and should be taken into account.
Kabir added: “Undoubtedly, with their addition, the pressure on other players will be removed and we can see better performance from our national basketball team.” The important point is that the national team needs preparation matches. Unfortunately, we did not have any preparation games, and it is in these friendly matches that a coach realizes the strengths and weaknesses of his team. I hope that friendly matches will be on the agenda so that the national team can go to the World Cup more easily.
He also mentioned the basketball premier league: the league was centralized, and this decision was based on the conditions of the country and Corona. In my opinion, after the play-off matches, we will see a better match between the eight climbing teams, and basketball fans will feel the joy of this sport again.
The third window of the tournament will start on July 10, where the Iranian national team will face Kazakhstan in an away match, and on the 13th of this month, it will return to the game and line up as a guest team against Syria.
At the end of the first round of the 2023 World Cup qualifiers, which include the first, second and third windows, the top three teams in each group will advance to the second round of the qualifiers, which includes the fourth to sixth windows. Accordingly, 12 teams from the Asia-Pacific region will advance to the second qualifying round of the 2023 World Cup.
Our national basketball team is in Group D with the teams of Kazakhstan, Syria and Bahrain.
Other groups are as follows:
Group A: New Zealand, South Korea, Philippines and India
Group B: Australia, China, Japan and Chinese Taipei
Group C: Jordan, Lebanon, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia
Last week, the Iranian basketball team experienced a win and a loss in the second window of the tournament. Mostafa Hashemi’s students first went to Kazakhstan in a home match and were in the top team until the fourth quarter, but in the end they lost the game with a result of 73-69.
In the other game of this stage, our national team hosted Syria , they won in a close game with a result of 80-68 in the basketball hall of Azadi Sports Complex in Tehran.