Syria-Lebanon match: 'Our two peoples are tired of tragedies and wars,' says al-Sharaa

BEIRUT — “This game is one of the sports dearest to our hearts, but we abandoned it because of wars, battles, and our many problems.” Before tip-off on Monday night for the first basketball game between Syria and Lebanon since the fall of the Assad regime, Ahmad al-Sharaa made a notable appearance on the court at al-Fayha Stadium in Damascus.

Attending the reopening of the Syrian capital’s sports arena, renovated to international standards, the Syrian president delivered a speech with political undertones in the current context, reflecting the warming relations that have begun between the two neighboring countries.

'Neither winner nor loser'

"We are proud to be here with you. Basketball is one of the sports we love the most, but we gave it up because of wars and our many problems ... The history of relations between the Syrian and Lebanese peoples has always been marked by a beautiful and harmonious relationship, unfortunately marred by politics. So it is wonderful that our first joint event is this basketball game," he said into the microphone, as the crowd cheered.

"There are special rules between Lebanon and Syria: between us, there are neither winners nor losers. So, whichever side wins, we all consider ourselves victorious," he continued, adding that the peoples of the two countries "are tired of tragedies and wars," and that "the time has come to put an end to them and move on to reconstruction."

Read more

Endless war or a buffer of ruins

After greeting both teams, al-Sharaa posed with the Lebanese athletes and the rest of the delegation, which included Ragheb Haddad, vice president of Beirut municipality and president of the Sagesse basketball club, as well as Akram Halabi, the president of the Lebanese Basketball Federation. The symbolic image almost made the result of the friendly match — largely dominated by the Lebanese team, which won 110-73 over the hosts — seem anecdotal.

The last game played in Damascus was in 2023, as Lebanese coach Ahmad Farran, who took over the Cedars last July, recalled: "We want to thank the Ministry of Sports and the Syrian federation for the invitation. We are proud to participate in the inauguration of the al-Fayha hall," he said.

'May your soul be cursed, Nasrallah'

This was the first meeting between the two national teams played in Damascus since the fall of the Assad regime on Dec. 8, 2024, when an alliance of Islamist rebels led by al-Sharaa, under the leadership of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took control.

The history between HTC and Hezbollah was nevertheless perceptible. "May your soul be cursed, Nasrallah!" some members of the audience briefly shouted as the Syrian president posed with the Lebanese team for a photo, in reference to the former secretary-general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, killed in September 2024 by a massive Israeli airstrike on the southern suburb of Beirut.

Hezbollah is deeply resented in Syria for its intervention in the Syrian civil war alongside the Bashar al-Assad regime against Syrian rebel factions, from which the new government in Damascus emerged. The party-militia had notably occupied certain border areas, such as Qousseir in the Homs countryside.

Relations between Lebanon and Syria have significantly warmed since late 2024, when al-Sharaa came to power, and following the election of Joseph Aoun as Lebanese president in early 2025, although some disagreements persist between Beirut and Damascus, notably regarding Syrian Islamist detainees held in Lebanese prisons.

However, animosity remains between the new Syrian authorities and Hezbollah, even though both former adversaries have publicly stated they do not seek confrontation. The U.S. administration had even attempted to leverage this history to encourage Syria to intervene militarily in the Bekaa against Hezbollah to dismantle part of its arsenal at the beginning of the recent war in Lebanon. The Syrian government did not yield to these American-Israeli pressures.

A new incident was reported on Sunday at the Lebanese–Syrian border, where Syrian authorities said they had “foiled a sabotage plan devised by a cell linked to Hezbollah” that allegedly attempted to fire rockets at Israel from Syrian territory, according to the Syrian Interior Ministry, which regularly accuses the party-militia of carrying out what it describes as “terrorist” activities on its soil. Hezbollah systematically denies these accusations.