Following this success for both the girls and even the MBA, through its youth policy, in last week’s European Under 18 Division C Championships, I took the opportunity to talk to the two men at the helm of the Malta Basketball association namely the president, Magistrate Antonio Mizzi, and the general secretary, Mr Frank Camilleri, with whom I discussed both this present summer’s national team commitments and even the future.

When asked about his views following the gold medal (incidentally this was the first ever gold medal won by a Maltese national side in a fully-fledged FIBA competition) won by the Maltese girls last week, Magistrate Mizzi said, “I am very pleased that what we have been working for this summer has succeeded in the most appropriate manner. I believed that the girls were medal material. However, I was surprised that against Monaco our girls exhibited a maturity which left me flabbergasted.”

On the latter statement the president of the MBA added, “This means that our coaching team of Salvo Coppa and Sandro Farrugia transmitted to the team a spirit which was not part of our DNA. Today, I hope that all our teams in all categories realize that the game is not over until the buzzer goes. This could appear to be quite trite, but having followed the national teams for a long number of years we are today experiencing something new. Winning is not something alien to us but winning this way is something new.”

On his part, Mr. Camilleri stated, “this is another confirmation of the MBA policies for the National Teams sector. After this result I hope that Basketball will be appreciated more by the sporting authorities. The latter must acknowledge that we have good programmes. We expect, by right, more support, being financial or otherwise.”

The youth policy should not be something done in a hap-hazard fashion but should be planned as well as possible with both short-term and long-term targets.

With this in mind, I asked whether the gold medal win was a result of a sound youth policy adopted in the last years.

Mag. Mizzi was quick to point out that, “the MBA has been concentrating on our youths for a number of years. I believe that the youth level is a must if we are to achieve better results at senior level. We must not forget that the player pool at top level is limited by numbers. We have to increase those numbers and at the same time ensure that the quality of our players becomes better. This means that the attention of our coaches must be always on the increase when it comes to our younger players.”

The president stressed that, “this is not limited to players of national interest only. Our clubs must realize that a greater attention must be given to the fundamentals of the game – sometimes even by foregoing quick results but concentrating on the medium to long term benefits of their decisions.”

Turning to club roots and respective nurseries, Mag. Mizzi said, “club nurseries are a must for the national teams. These are the reservoirs of our future national players. A good club policy at youth level translates itself in a better senior club team and better results all round.”

When commenting on last week’s success and the MBA’s youth policy, the secretary Mr. Camilleri stated, “without any doubt this is the result of a lot of hard work by coaches, players and clubs to make the game of basketball more technical. This is the result of the policies adopted in the last ten years where we have seen a huge growth in the junior sector starting from Mini-basket. Ten years ago we had 12 teams participating in Mini-basket in two categories. Now we have more than 35 teams participating in five categories. More recently we have added the experience of foreign coaches to help us by making their experience available.”

As the youth policy and goals were being referred to quite consistently, a natural question to come about is whether there more short term and long term goals in this youth policy?

“Yes” was the immediate answer by Mr. Camilleri as he continued, “some three months ago we have started preparing the team for the U16 FIBA competition to be played in July 2008. We now would like to improve the results even in the U16. Once we achieve this the work at senior level will be much easier.”

Mag. Mizzi added, “we are only at the start of some of our more ambitious programmes. Our youth policy has long term goals. This means that we must invest more in these sectors and we have to work, work and work more. We stop working and the level of basketball will start to regress.”

In the past summer there was also the male participation in the Under 18 Europeans in Cardiff, Wales. It is clear that the respective male and female categories are different as the competition for the boys is more intense. I asked both Mag. Mizzi and Mr, Camilleri on their overall opinion when comparing these two youth ventures.

“I am very pleased that our sectors, men and women, are working in a very concrete way. My opinion can only be positive. At this moment the men’s sector has a longer way to go” said the president and he then continued, “However, we must remember that the women’s sector has been under the overall control of Prof. Santino Coppa since November, 2002. The men’s sector has been under Mr. Bruno Dipietroantonio only since July, 2005. In the women’s sector we are in the second quadrennial. In the men’s sector we are in the first quadrennial.”

The secretary explained further “the result for the female sector speak for itself. We improved tremendously thanks to the hard work of the coaches and all the girls. They trained twice a day throughout summer. Training in the morning and evening in August is not easy with the temperatures we have in Malta. The boy’s team had mixed results with two wins and two losses. We expected something better. The system of competition did not help to really evaluate the strength of the teams. We lost to Scotland who won the tournament and Monaco who finished sixth. I am convinced that with a win against Monaco we could have ended in the fourth place. The level in the male sector is higher. Nevertheless we made also big strides forward technically. Our players are more technical now. Still we need to work harder on the collective side of the game.”

Mr. Camilleri spoke also about the organisation of last week’s championships (in my opinion this was of a great quality), “organisation-wise we had a good tournament. This was the 8th tournament in the last 12 years. MBA organised 33 per cent of all the FIBA tournaments for this sector. We have a lot of experience. The success was that all people at the MBA gave a helping hand. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Joe Depasquale Schranz, Vice President, for being available throughout the tournament. I cannot leave out also Messrs. Leonard Falzon and Ottavio Terrible.”

It was time to talk about the future and Mag. Mizzi stated “our aim is to improve our teams and achieve results which up to this day are not within our reach. The number of Maltese players playing abroad is on the increase and this will help us in the long run. Apart from this, the recent amendments to our nationality laws mean that we can tap the basketball skills of our countrymen who have been cut from our mother country in a very artificial way. These men and women are Maltese and are proud to be called to represent this country in the basketball world. At this moment in time we have acquired the services of Rebecca Brincat and in the pipeline that are other men and women who want to help their mother country. This makes me very proud because the MBA had been advocating a change in the law for a long number of years and today this is a reality.”