The chances of seeing Joël Embiid play for Cameroon are dwindling since the professional basketball player took French nationality as can be seen in the official journal of July 5, 2022. He had however maintained hope by posting on his Facebook page , last May, that Cameroon remains his first love and that everything was possible with the Indomitable Lions.
A month after this declaration of love, Joël Embiid got much closer to the Blues than to the Cameroon national team. Which is no surprise. In May, the French press revealed that the basketball player had taken steps to obtain French nationality.
«We had contact with him, Patrick Beesley (manager of the Blues) saw him in the United States, but we did not open a file. He loves France, he has family here », then affirmed Jean-Pierre Siutat, the president of the French Basketball Federation.
Everything suggests that Joël Embiid has made his choice between Cameroon and France. Even if the general manager of the Blues, Boris Diaw, had indicated that a naturalization of Embiid does not guarantee him direct access to the France team. But it is hard to believe that we can do without the services of the Cameroonian credited with an average of 30.6 points per game.
In newsrooms in France it is said that France has decided to recruit Joël Embiid to strengthen its team in order to aim for the gold medal during the 2024 Olympic Games, which are played in Paris. This hypothesis holds up mainly because Joël Embiid has never worn the Indomitable Lions jersey. Even if the arrival of the Cameroonian at the Blues does not reassure everyone, because the latter has no history with France.
Embiid was born in Yaoundé, Cameroon in March 1994. In the early 2010s, he joined the University of Gainesville in Florida in the United States. He will experience loneliness far from his family back home. In 2014, he was drafted by the Philadelphia Sixters. At 28, he became one of the best centers in the NBA with five All-Star Game selections.
Michel Ange Nga
