Basketball: France-Tunisia, first trial run for world summits for the Blues

Summit goal! Even deprived of its giant Victor Wembanyama, the French basketball team begins Monday in Pau its rise to power one month before the 2023 World Cup in Asia, with a first preparation match against Tunisia (8:30 p.m., live on France 4 and bein Sports). At the foot of the Pyrenees, the Blues of coach Vincent Collet are beginning their run-in for the major global meeting disputed in Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia (August 25-September 10), the last major international tournament before the Paris Olympics in 2024.

They would have liked to be able to count in Asia on Wembanyama, announced as the future of the tricolor selection. But the 19-year-old prodigy, drafted in first position in the NBA, preferred to give up the World Cup, a "necessary sacrifice" according to him, while he will play his first season with the San Antonio Spurs.

Collet therefore relied on experience to choose his 12 Globalists, including the returns of Nando De Colo (36) and Nicolas Batum (34), who had skipped the Euro in Germany last year. , completed with the silver medal. "The backbone of the team has already experienced and knows the requirements of the high level, the challenge of competitions, and also the system with increasingly shorter preparations each time, underlines Vincent Collet in a press conference. . The commitment is really already high and it's very good because we will only have at most ten or eleven sessions before leaving for Japan. This is proof of the maturity of the group, of its experience”.

The 2021 Olympic vice-champions and 2022 European vice-champions, who have never done better than the bronze medal at the World Cup (2014, 2019), approach the tournament among the serious contenders, in the same way as Spain European champion or the inevitable United States. With the desire, finally, to taste the gold medal which would reward a whole generation. “We are not here just to be there, the goal is to have what we have not yet managed to have, that is to say the gold medal”, abounds the NBA star Blues Rudy Gobert. "It's a pride to be one of the favourites. But we know our sport and many teams can claim this status ”, had tempered Vincent Collet at the end of June.

Without Wembanyama and his 2.24 meters, nor the pivot Joël Embiid, courted by the French and American federations, the Blues still keep major assets in the interior game with the defensive ogre Rudy Gobert, supported by Moustapha Fall and Mathias Lessort , even if the latter is "clean" this Monday evening. The match against Tunisia, African champion 2021, will be an opportunity to “repeat life-size the few systems that we have worked on for three days. We already want to have an energy and a defensive identity that stands out, being aware that there are still plenty of things to put in place, ”explains Vincent Collet.

And to prowl in particular the offensive schemes: “We have to work on them, specify them, that the players learn to do together. It is all these habits that must be rediscovered. But it's not a switch, it takes practice for it and it's a bit of a race against time. We know, fortunately, that our opponents are in the same boat,” continues the coach, assuring that “this offensive requirement is essential. If your game is too static, you go into the wall.

The match is thus an opportunity to entrust the keys to the game to the two leaders selected, Frank Ntilikina but also Sylvain Francisco, a very explosive small size who will participate at the age of 25 (6 caps) in his first international competition.

Monday evening, Batum and De Colo, among the 2013 European champion players, will receive a tribute at the Palais des Sports in Pau for the tenth anniversary of the only major title in French men's basketball. After Tunisia, the Blues will test themselves against Montenegro on Wednesday, then Venezuela (August 7), Lithuania (August 9 and August 11), Japan (August 17) and Australia (August 20). France is due to start its World Cup on August 25 against Canada in Jakarta (Indonesia), in group H, which also includes Latvia and Lebanon.