A potential success in the upcoming ANOC World Beach Games Qatar 2019 will be just another great frame for the 3x3 Basketball national team of the host country.
But the real success for the host team is not exactly a medal or a trophy. It is the evolution of its players’ game and the process of the development programme, which started in 2012 by the Qatar Basketball Federation (QBF). The real success is the hard work that players, coaches and executives have put up to bring their team into the next level.
The Qatari national team will compete at the 3x3 Basketball tournament in the Katara Beach venue, from October 13-16, deploying a young core of promising players. With athletes that have already proved their worth to the world basketball stage and look hungry for more success.
Nedim Muslic, the 21-year-old star of the team hurt his shoulder in the second game of the FIBA 3x3 U23 World Cup in China, a few days ago, and is unavailable, therefore Elhadj Ndoye Seydou, a 20-year-old dynamic player in the paint, will lead the four-member squad, which also includes Aladji Bobo Magassa, 19, Raslan al-Abduilla, 19, one of the best young players the local basketball scene has ever produced and Faisal Abuissa, 20.
Seydou is looking for another rank inside the medal zone, hoping a triumph similar to the 2016 3x3 FIBA U18 World Championships gold medal in Astana, Kazakhstan! Despite dropping their first game, Qatar went on to win the next six, knocking out 2015 finalists Argentina and champions New Zealand in the quarter-final and the semi-final respectively. In the final, Muslic and Seydou helped their team edge past Brazil, 20-12.
Qatar’s basketball legend, Yasseen Musa, is the manager of the country’s 3x3 Basketball team for the World Beach Games.
The 39-year old former star retired in 2016 and is considered to be the face of Qatari basketball. Musa led his national team to the silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, losing only to China in the final. At the 1999 U18 World Championships, Musa averaged a tournament-best 25 points per game, ahead of future stars like Spain’s Pau Gasol and Juan Carlos Navarro and Russia’s Andrei Kirilenko.
His final years at the international scene were successfully and equally shared between indoor basketball and the half-court game. Musa helped Qatar win the gold medal in the 2013 Asian Games and led his team to the title in the second FIBA 3x3 World Cup in 2014 in Moscow, where Qatar defeated 18-13 defending champions Serbia!
Yasseen Musa has his eyes fixed on the prize in Doha, but just like the Philadelphia 76ers’ motto dictates, for the Qatari Basketball Federation the real success is to “Trust the Process”!
The Qatar team during a training session yesterday.
