Dubai: UAE basketball coach Zoran Zupcevic says his team have virtually no chance of qualifying from their Fiba Under-17 World Championship group after being drawn with Italy, Spain and Puerto Rico.

The draw for the 16-team competition, which will be held in Dubai from August 8-16, was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on the Palm Jumeirah on Wednesday.

The hosts managed to avoid being pooled with the likes of double champions USA and former losing finalists Australia.

However, Zupcevic still held out little hope of reaching the second round.

“It would be ridiculous and stupid to say we are going to pass the group,” he said. “It’s absolutely unrealistic; whoever says we can [qualify] has no clue what they are on about.”

Instead, Zupcevic said it would be an opportunity for his youngsters to gain experience for the future.

“For us, every game, every minute we are going to be learning from guys who are probably 20 times better than us. If we are able to absorb and learn through every game, then we are going to be winners in this tournament for ourselves.”

This will be the third staging of the event, which has been held every two years since 2010. Venues at Al Wasl, Al Ahli and the Hamdan Sports Complex will stage the matches.

Lubomir Kotleba, Fiba director of sport, said that if the UAE successfully staged the event, bidding for the 32-team men’s 2019 Fiba World Cup could be a logical progression.

“Infrastructure, hotels and airports are perfect,” Kotleba said. “But it also needs a good home team and a full stadium. Here that could be a little problem to fill the gym with 10,000 spectators.

“It also needs strong financial support from many sources, especially the government. But I’m not saying it’s excluded. If I didn’t believe it was possible, I would never say so.”

Zupcevic said that with the experience gained from this tournament, the UAE could have the makings of a strong future national team.

“It’s going to be great exposure for our kids,” he said. “This will be great momentum to start rebuilding basketball.”

But Kotleba doubted whether it would have that much of an affect looking ahead to a hypothetical 2019 bid.

“Those playing here at 17, in five years time they will be 22. They cannot make a strong national team, at present they are not even one of the strongest teams in Asia.

“The same problems will exist. If they say they are in a strong group, now what will be the easy group then? Every team they will meet will be strong.”