Jim Lefebvre is all too familiar with the sniping of doubters as a former Major League Baseball (MLB) manager.

 

So when the knockers returned to goad him as China's men's team manager after it failed to challenge the world's best nations at last week's "Good Luck Beijing" Tournament, the former Los Angeles Dodger and MLB all-star brushed them off.

 

Just like in the past, he merely stresses the importance of patience and urges critics to show some faith in the Chinese team as he helps rebuild it.

 

"It's a learning process," Lefebvre told China Daily in an exclusive interview last week.

 

"I've been in baseball for a long time and I understand that. But sometime for the writers, fans and people around us, they don't understand. When things went down they would panic.

 

"But we are going to be alright -- I've been there before."

 

The Chinese camp has good reason to panic after the team suffered two bitter defeats -- 7-1 in the preliminary and 5-2 in the gold medal game -- to eventual winner Japan, a foe China has never beaten in international competition.

 

Except for two victories against South Korea in 2004 -- in Asian Olympic qualifiers for the Athens Games and the 2005 Asian Championships -- China's recent track record against the world's best has been fruitless.

 

However, the steadfast Lefebvre looks at the losses philosophically.

 

"I managed three MLB teams and I rebuilt every one of them," he recalled. "I know what it takes. I know what we have to do."

 

Lefebvre was appointed manager of the Seattle Mariners in 1988 after gaining respect as the batting coach of the American League champion Oakland A's.

 

After two losing seasons, he led the Mariners to a winning record (83-79) for the first time in the franchise's history.

 

The following season he took the helm of the Chicago Cubs and again righted a listless under achiever, taking the Cubs past the .500 mark for the first time in 11 years.

 

Throughout the hard times he remained positive while the skeptics crowed until eventually everyone hailed the team's improvement. So his current role seems a bit like Groundhog Day.

 

Since his 2003 appointment alongside fellow MLB all-star Bruce Hurst (China's pitching coach), Lefebvre has struggled to persuade his charges to hit the weights and officials to provide the training facilities for them to do so.

 

"It (the building process) can be very painful," the manager explained.

 

The 64 year-old believes he and his team have been treated somewhat unfairly by certain commentators.

 

China had two excellent opportunities to defeat Japan last week by scoring runs first, but squandered leads in separate matches after defensive errors compounded poor pitching performances.

 

"We are a lot closer than people give us credit for," the unwavering manager said. "Some people don't think we are getting much better."

 

China achieved its best result by placing ninth at the World Cup last year where it scored eight runs against eventual winner and baseball powerhouse Cuba.

 

But Chinese sports fans can be forgiven for being harsh on the national squad given the nation produces hundreds of world champions every year.

 

"We are getting there and we are very close," Lefebvre stressed, referring to the likes of Japan, USA, Cuba and South Korea.

 

China defeated second-string the Czech Republic and France by big margins last week. However, the better teams possess much greater depth, which explains why China is ranked just No 4 in Asia.

 

Last month Lefebvre led his team on a tough US tour to play Team USA in five matches.

 

In four lopsided affairs (one was stopped by rain) against America's best college talents, China managed a paltry three runs to its opponent's 37.

 

Ominously, the players China met last month were far from the America's best and are unlikely to be selected for the Olympics. The Japanese team that traveled to Beijing also rates somewhere between college and the second-tier level of Japan's professional baseball.

 

For China to acquit itself well next year after automatically qualifying for the Beijing Games as host, the team must start believing its stoic manager and at least show it can cut it with the sport's elite.

 

Several team members understand the gulf between them and the better sides, in particular those who've played overseas.

 

"It's like two different worlds," pitcher Lu Jiangang, who played in Japan for four years, said.

 

"We play like 30 games of various levels a year and they play up to 140 highest level games a year. That's a big jump for me."

 

Teammate Wang Chao, who played for the Seattle Mariners for a few seasons, agreed.

 

"They just show you what the best baseball is," he said.

 

But Lefebvre remains sanguine as he is arguably coaching the best Chinese baseball team ever assembled.

 

Apart from Wang, Lu and Zhu Dawei, a pitcher who signed with Japanese Pacific League baseball team Seibu Lions last September, four other players have just inked deals with MLB teams the New York Yankees and the Mariners.

 

"I think we are within the world top eight and we belong to the Olympics," he said.

 

"We are in the bottom of those strong teams. We can be competitive and we can show good games against team.

 

"We will be very competitive during the Olympics -- there is no question about it."

 

(China Daily August 28, 2007)