The Gazelles team will not start as favorites this Thursday, March 10 in the quarter-final return.
Leaving on Friday at the very beginning of the afternoon to go to La Roche-sur-Yon in the championship, the BLMA Gazelles did not complete their journey through Hungary five days later.
Suffice to say that there was “no more training session than care on the way back because the girls needed to recover”, justifies Valéry Demory.
The Coupe de France in the souvenir department, the Euroleague no longer very far from the “end” box except for a reversal of the situation which is quite difficult to envisage without wanting to disrespect the Gazelles, the latter will soon be able to devote themselves solely to a women’s League where their destiny is still in their hands to slip into the play-off. Those that the BLMA disputes, paradoxically on the European scene, hence this return against Sopron, two days after the 60-42 failure in Hungary.
Incomparable means
The calendar, heavy to assume since the Gazelles got up at 5 a.m. Wednesday in order to leave Vienna joined the previous evening, is thus because the stronghold of the BLMA was occupied Saturday evening by a boxing gala.
“Anyway, we can’t fight with them at the financial level because they don’t pay charges, so the same goes for the workforce “, warns Valéry Demory who completes, “ for the Euroleague, you need a big budget (the current season weighs nearly €250,000, editor’s note), 9 “pros” and no injuries.”
The BLMA is therefore somewhat like a “Martian” in the quarters. After the 60-42 conceded in the first leg, “we want to try to get out through the front door by offering a good performance to the public. Even if I place Sopron below Fenerbahçe, Prague, Salamanca, they are a great team.“ What will be able to verify the public who will see or not Wallace according to the results of the exams of the day.
The LFB represented by four clubs
Its leaders have always praised the quality and density of the Women’s League which has a real place in the list of winners of the Old Continent (Euroleague: 3 titles for Bourges, 2 for the late US Valenciennes Orchies; Ronchetti: 1 title for Bourges and Tarbes GB Eurocoupe: 1 title for Aix-en-Provence, ESB Villeneuve-d’Ascq and Bourges).
During this 2021-2022 vintage, the BLMA achieved the feat of reaching the Grand 8 of the Euroleague (read elsewhere). The Eurocup could make it possible to expand this record since Basket Landes, who was transferred from the Euroleague (6th), will be opposed to Bourges in a quarter-final while the LDLC Asvel will play against the Turks of Cukurova, i.e. three chances to lift the trophy.
