Czech national basketball coach Zdenek Hummel believes a fighting spirit will help his team after announcing his squad for EuroBasket 2007.

The Czechs have been drawn in a tough group alongside Germany, Lithuania and Turkey and, although Hummel acknowledges his team are outsiders, he is warning the bigger sides to write them off at their peril.

"We are outsiders but I believe we will surprise people in our games against favourites," he said.
"We will fight and nothing is lost before every single game.

"We will start with a game versus Germany with Dirk Nowitzki. He is one of the best players in the NBA but he is only a human and can have a bad day.

"Lithuania has a strong team made up of quality players.

Turkey has a good team as well which is based on great defence but I think it is possible to play both these teams."

The coach has clearly been buoyed by the build-up to the tournament where the team won their first two matches against Poland and Latvia but lost their following five, albeit against quality opposition.

"I am satisfied with our preparation - we worked on physical preparation in the mountains of Krkonose and we played many quality friendly games in Italy, France and Spain," he said.

"We won only two of seven games but I am happy we played strong opponents - Russia, France, Italy and Spain.

"It was a big experience for our players who saw it is possible to play against NBA stars."
Back in 1999 the Czechs finished 12th at EuroBasket and the star man from that tournament Lubos Barton wants them to recreate the camaraderie that led them to wins over Greece and Lithuania.

"We have to stay modest - that is important," he said.

"We were not very "big" when we played in the European Championship for the last time in 1999. We travelled there with "small" targets but we won over Greece and Lithuania.

"I remember that championship very well - we, together with Jiri Welsch (who is in the squad again this time around), travelled there like rookies, we wanted to have a fun and it worked nicely.

"We want to show everybody that there are quality basketball players in the Czech Republic in this championship."

Czech squad:
Pavel Benes (Nymburk), Stepan Vrubl (Brno), Maurice Whitfield (Olympias Patras); Petr Benda (Nymburk), Jakub Houska (Decin), Ondrej Starosta (Zaragoza); Lubos Barton (Badalona), Lukas Kraus (Liberec), Michal Kremen, Radek Necas, Ladislav Sokolovsky (all Nymburk), Jiri Welsch (Malaga).