Michael Bastian(L) is excited as China's Xin Minhong(2nd right) scores on August 28,2006.In that same match,China edged Italy 3-1 at the ISF Women's Softball World Championship in Beijing.[China Daily]

"We are the fourth best out of many good teams," Bastian said after his Chinese squad came fourth at the World Championships last August.

"I want to be No 1. That's the fight that I'm fighting right now."

Bastian taught a college team and a professional team in the US, before conducting clinics for the International Softball Federation in Guatemala, the Netherlands and Cameroon.

After a session in Kunming, capital city of Southwest China's Yunnan Province, in early 2005, he was invited to lead the Chinese women's softball team to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He jumped at the chance to coach in the Olympic Games, describing it as the "pinnacle" of his ambitions.

Aged 44 and a bachelor, Bastian describes softball as his life partner, which means he is saddened more than anyone that the sport is being cut from the Olympic roster after 2008. Despite mixed feelings competing against the United States, he says his decision to coach China was partly aimed at encouraging the International Olympic Committee to reintroduce the sport in 2016.

But his primary focus now is taking the Chinese team to the next level. The team is currently stuck as the world's number four, finishing just outside the medals at the 2000 Sydney Games and 2004 Athens Games, and in the 2002 and 2006 World Championships.

Bastian has pinpointed a number of areas where the team can improve. Technically, work needs to be done on offense, to ensure the team can still pick up runs against world class pitching.

More important to the coach, however, is the team's mental approach. The players used to be too shy to even make eye-contact with him, and Bastian wants them to show a bit of personality on the field.

"They are the most hard-working and unselfish people in the world," he said after the Worlds. "But they need to have more fun."

He likes to use body language to fire his players up, all the more important as he cannot speak Chinese and they cannot speak English: "The base runners always get mixed up between 'go, go, go!' and 'no, no, no!'"

"With the team now we don't have a problem communicating except 'What time do we eat?' and 'What are we supposed to do right now?'," Bastian joked.

Bastian also wants his girls to be more aggressive and more selfish. One time after the players offered him the best food when they ate together, he told them to never be so selfless in their pursuit for a gold medal.

Bastian is very active in terms of adjusting himself to life in China. "It's a life-changing experience," he said. "Things that used to bother me before when I was in America don't bother me now I am stronger, more peaceful and more confident."

This added confidence is sure to stand the team in good stead as 2008 approaches. And to remind him exactly why he moved half a world away, just next to their practice field stands the steel lattice of the Bird's Nest, the main stadium for the Games.

"My dream," Bastian says, "is to have China play the US in the gold medal game in 2008."