The third stage of the 19th Arab Basketball Championship, currently hosted by Egypt, came to a close. Whereas Algeria stole the spotlight in the first stage of the preliminary, the Egyptian national team, the Champion of Africa and the tenth of the world, will collect his thoughts and invest his efforts to get even with the desert warriors in the anticipated scenario between them next Thursday at the end of the Championship to decide the winner of the new version. The Qatari and the Emirati national teams compete for the bronze medal if the latter beat the Kuwaiti team in their forthcoming game, yet the potentials of Emirates seems much bigger to take over the fourth place and compete for the bronze medal. In either way this is deemed to be a great achievement for the white team in his first international appearance under the commandment of the national coach Salim Atieq and the absence of two crucial element owing to injury, whereas the obvious aim is the preparation for the Gulf Championship that will be hosted by Emirates at the end of this month, as a qualifier for the Asian Finals to be held the next month where the first two national teams will go for the finals. What is remarkable in the Championship is outstanding rise of the Emirati Captain / Abdelaziz Khalifa who scored 92 points till now, of which 21 points in the last game before Algeria, namely half of what scored by the team, although the couch tried not to exhaust him much in order to save him for the coming stages.
On the other hand, the teams are getting ready for the second part that will start tomorrow Monday including three games; Qatar vs. Algeria to break their tie in the number of points and winnings yet still the precedence is for the latter because of the score difference. In the second game the national teams of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will meet, those teams show less potentiality to continue in the Championship. The last game in this new stage will be between Egypt and Emirates.
The Ranking of the Teams
For the ranking of the teams, Algeria has the precedence with 6 points from three winnings and with a score difference than Qatar who is ranking the second, followed by the Egyptian national team with 5 points and one defeat, then Emirates the fourth with 4 points and one winning, while Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are the fifth and the sixth with no winnings.
العربية