The Blues of football had the 2002 World Cup, those of basketball now have the World Cup 2023. Announced among the favorites for the title, the France team was eliminated in the first round after a slap received against Canada on Friday and a surprise loss to Latvia on Sunday. A disillusion which has no real precedents, but which recalls certain other fiascos of the Blues.
2003, takeoff for Athens missed
In Sweden, France comes to the Euro with a very rich workforce. The coach Alain Weisz can count on the recent NBA champion Tony Parker, on other NBAers like Tariq Abdul-Wahad and Jérôme Moïso but also the Madrilenian Alain Digbeu or the young Boris Diaw. Ambitious, the Blues made a perfect start to the competition, before meeting Lithuania in the semi-finals.
The France of a young Tony Parker failed to qualify for the Athens Olympics in 2003. (B. Fablet/L’Équipe)
The French are standing up to the future European champion but ultimately lose a little (70-74), passing to a loss of ball from Tony Parker close to offering themselves a first European final. Disappointed, the Blues will not succeed in recovering from this failure. In the match for third place against Italy, where the winner qualifies for the Olympic Games in Athens, France is unrecognizable and loses (67-69) against an opponent that it had largely dominated in chickens (85-52).
Finalist in Sydney in 2000, the France team experienced major disillusionment, which notably pushed Tariq Abdul-Wahad to retire from international football. Qualified surprise for the Olympic Games, Italy will rise to the final of the Olympic tournament.
2007, a slap and no Olympics
Absent in Athens, France wants to correct the situation by qualifying for the Beijing Olympics. To do this, the Blues must go far during Euro 2007, played in Spain. But France, led by Tony Parker, Boris Diaw, Florent Piétrus and Ronny Turiaf (all already present in 2003 in Stockholm), will experience a real nightmare.
Eliminated in the quarter-finals by Russia, future champion, the Blues take a new slap two days later against Croatia (69-86) and play their qualification for the Olympic Games against Slovenia, in a classification match for seventh place. . Despite Tony Parker’s 31 points, France still lost and lost their ticket to Beijing. A real disappointment for the “Parker generation”, which was still running after a first participation in the Olympic tournament.
Ronny Turiaf’s disappointment after not qualifying for the Beijing Olympics. (FABLET/The Team)
2016, missed farewells for the “Parker generation”
Four years after London, where France took sixth place, the Blues are again playing the Olympic tournament in Rio, for what is labeled as the last tournament of the famous “Parker generation”. Third in their group with two defeats, against Australia and the United States, they find their best enemy, Spain, for a quarter-final that will turn into humiliation.
Dominated throughout the meeting, the Blues do not exist and are walked on by the Spaniards who will win the bronze medal four days later. After forty minutes of ordeal, France bows heavily (67-92) for the last of Tony Parker with the jersey of the national team. A bitter end for two captains, who dreamed of a medal for their last competition with the Blues.
For his last with France in 2016, Tony Parker received a slap against Spain at the Olympics. (P. Lahalle/The Team)
1984, the open wound of Los Angeles
Long before the transition to the new millennium, France experienced one of its most traumatic competitions during the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984. Qualified for the Olympics for the first time since Rome (1960), the Blues will suffer throughout the competition. Placed in pool B, they lost their five matches, including a scathing 120-62 against the United States.
The classification matches will save the honor slightly, France largely beating Egypt (102-78) for eleventh place (out of twelve) after another defeat against Brazil (86-100), however not erasing the mark of a failed tournament. The Blues will then have to wait sixteen years before returning to the Olympic Games, for a much happier outcome in Sydney.
