China basketball coach Li Nan resigns after team’s disastrous showing at Fiba World Cup
- The former star player steps down on Wednesday but his resignation needs to be approved by the General Administration of Sport
- China finished 24th out of 32 teams, losing their final game against Iran despite hosting the tournament
China head coach Li Nan has resigned following his team’s disastrous campaign at the recent Fiba Basketball World Cup, where they failed to qualify for next year’s Olympics despite being hosts.
Li offered to step down from his position on Wednesday and his resignation will be subject to approval by the General Administration of Sport, the Chinese media reported on Wednesday.
The 44-year-old Li, a former national star player, was expected to resign after China finished a lowly 24th out of 32 teams in the basketball showpiece. Their poor results meant they have dashed their hopes of automatically qualifying for the Tokyo Games. China won just two games in the World Cup tournament – against the Ivory Coast and South Korea – but racked up losses against Poland, Nigeria and Venezuela.
The hosts finished behind Asian counterparts Iran in the 17-32 classification round, denting their hopes of qualifying for Tokyo. Team Red will now enter a 24-team repechage qualifier later this year.
Calls for Li’s resignation had been loud from fans who were embarrassed by the team’s performance in basketball’s biggest tournament after the Olympics. Li had not indicated that he would resign in a post-match press conference after their campaign ended with former NBA superstar, Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, “assuming all responsibilities” for the team’s poor run.
As a player, Li won eight national league titles with the Bayi Rockets. He also played in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, where China reached the last eight. Four years earlier in Athens, Li helped his team reach the Olympics quarter-finals as well.
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After retiring as a player in 2009, Li became coach of the Bayi youth team before officially joining the China national team as an assistant to Deng Huade. He was promoted to coach in April 2017 before he was made head coach at this year’s World Cup.
Li has been in charge of the China team since May and had more than 100 days’ preparation for the World Cup that included 17 warm-up games.
Li was strongly criticised by fans after China failed to reach the last 16 of the World Cup after they suffered a surprise 72-59 defeat to Venezuela in their group match in Beijing.
Fans were already calling Li to resign, chanting “dismiss Li Nan” in the final quarter of the Venezuela game. Li’s tactics were one of the biggest trending topics on Weibo following the defeat with many fans questioning the coach’s decisions in the tournament. China were drawn in one of the easiest groups of the tournament with Poland, Venezuela and the Ivory Coast but still failed to make it to the second round.
Li blamed his player’s lack of physicality for the loss against Venezuela, who beat the hosts 72-59.
“Even though our players may be taller, our opponents were physically stronger than us, which put us at a disadvantage. We need to improve our players’ physical fitness first and have a better understanding of techniques,” Li said.
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Fans also made a comparison between China’s two national teams, comparing their basketball team to the country’s success starved football team.
“We have two under achieving teams both in Guangzhou,” posted one basketball fan on Weibo. “It’s a little bit weird but it’s time to make a comparison to which team is worse.”
