BEIRUT: The passion of shooting guard Sabah Khoury for Sagesse Club has surpassed all limits. People would say there is green blood running through his veins due to his apparent commitment to the club.

Khoury, 29, spoke to The Daily Star’s Sports Weekly about the current season and his expectations for his beloved Sagesse.

“I expect myself to play hard and continue to help the team go in a positive direction. As you know, our goal from the first is to reach the Final Four. And I hope we will achieve it,” Khoury said.

“To claim we are 100 percent guaranteed a top four spot is not realistic; the competition this year is wide and any team can make it,” he said. “Riyadi and Champville are secured, the other two are still open to many possibilities, but I am seeing Anibal Zahle as the most [likely to qualify], and the fourth place might be a toss up between Mouttahed, Sagesse, Bejjeh and Byblos. It depends on who [can maintain their form] the longest.

“We started the season with a lot of ups and downs, which were reflecting the administrative blunder inside the whole club. I feel, however, that we are now on the right track after the Dubai Tournament. Simultaneously, we played together for the first time as one group and we found our rhythm,” said Khoury, who first won the Lebanese title with Sagesse in the 2002/2003 season.

“I am very happy with coach Tony Vujanic. He is not the one responsible for some of our losses. He can’t go it alone when the club was suffering in so many aspects,” said Khoury.

“We changed many foreign players at the beginning of the season. It was a bit awkward for the team to adjust quickly with this method. But now, with Nate Johnson and Brandon Crump, everything is different. Johnson added maturity and scoring attribution to the team, meanwhile Crump is loved by the players and he is doing a massive job lately under the basket.

“The only heartbreaker for us is the injury to Daniel Faris [he suffered an ACL tear in his left knee]. He was really enthusiastic to help the team but unfortunately we will miss him again. I hope for him a fast recovery and I am sure he will be back stronger next season.”

Khoury has been absent from the Lebanese national team since 2008. Still, he has been called up continuously but revealed that his main focus is on Sagesse Club.

“Representing the national team is an honor to me and any player. But unfortunately, the past few years were really tough on Sagesse, and this is taking up all my attention right now,” said Khoury. “I have been part of the national team in the most successful moments when we qualified to the World Championship 2006 and beat France and I couldn’t feel prouder, but right now I feel that Sagesse needs me more.

“It’s not that I don’t think about it. Any player would like to play at the highest level internationally but every summer something is happening with Sagesse and it leaves me uncomfortable to focus on other things like the national team,” he explained.

“I respect coach Ghassan Sarkis a lot, and I have no personal problems with him. However, I feel sorry for the way the team had been prepared lately and the results weren’t surprising though, taking into consideration the circumstances around the team.”

Khoury said he considers it a blessing to be captain of one of the most popular clubs in Lebanon, but he also admitted that the players are under stifling pressure during the season.

“When Sagesse lose, it’s not a normal thing. People will talk about it for days, so you know that every shot you take, you either will become a hero or [a villain], but I got used to it and I try to enjoy it.

“I barely do anything else other than basketball during the season. My main focus remains around the club and my time gets really small then. I practice around 5-6 hours per day, including the two-hour session with the club.”

As a professional player, Khoury always looks out for better opportunities, but the guard made it crystal clear that he prefers to wait for years to win the title with Sagesse instead of winning it with another team he would feel uncomfortable playing with.

“I’m patient and hopeful that the club will rise again if all the efforts are put in the right direction. I have refused many offers to join other clubs and I don’t regret it. Sagesse is everything to me,” said Khoury, who played three seasons outside of the “Green Castle” with Champville, Mouttahed and Tianjin of China.

Khoury, who ended the 2010/2011 season with a record from the 3-point line (he made 69 shots out of 229), said that he underwent a few bad seasons which he traced back to playing with different coaches.

“Changing coaches is something that bothers the players. I have played with two and three different coaches in style and this affected my game negatively,” said Khoury. “Stability is something that comforts the players and gets 100 percent out of their potential.”

Khoury has won the title with Sagesse two times before, in the 2002/2003 and 2003/2004 seasons, but since then he has been unable to lead Sagesse to glory.

He joined the club when former chairman Antoine Choueiri, the man behind the club’s most successful period, discovered him while the Lebanon team was playing in the World Championship at Indianapolis in 2002.

“He had first seen me play there when I was playing in junior college in United States. He loved my game and wanted me to join the club. And that’s what happened the next season.”