“Lots of sadness”, “great disappointment”, huge disillusionment “,” not played as a team “… These are the expressions that most often returned to the mouths of the Habs this Sunday after the heavy and bitter defeat (54-69) in the small final of the Euro against Italy. “I am disgusted, there is not really a word to express it, if not disgust and almost regret, not to have seized this opportunity. We can only blame ourselves ”sums up the Ailière Migna Touré.
What words to choose on our side when we look at them from the outside: failure or fiasco? The two stick to the balance sheet of the French female basketball team which returns from the euro without a medal in the suitcase.
For the first time since 2007, the Bleues left empty -handed from a European championship. This is the end of a series of 8 consecutive medals. It was so much a habit that the shock is violent. Olympic vice-championes certainly deprived of many (too much?) Framers have drowned in the waters of the Port of Piraeus. “We failed, we did not put the necessary ingredients. We missed the appointment ”notes coach Jean-Aimé Toupane.
In a little over a year, the new meeting that awaits the team of Jean-Aimé Toupane, which this failure does not seem to be weakening, will be a World Cup at the end of the summer of 2026 in Germany. “We learn much more when we lose than when we win and we will try to bounce back. We are going to be in an uncompromising analysis of our preparation, the way we got here, see everything that did not work, “said DTN Alain Contensoux.
At the World Cup, France will have to do better, to show something else, to return to the success of the games with an even more raised opposition than in Greece. “”
In the meantime, how to analyze this unexpected rout?
Too many absent in the United States
It is first explained by absences even if it was part of the contract. Playing a European championship without what you have best in store, necessarily, it complicates things.
Gabby Williams, Marine Johannès, Dominique Malonga retained by the WNBA and Marine Faudhoux injured during the preparation missed the appointment. We can discuss reasons, good or bad, those that have remained in the United States. In any case, this is the new deal of international women’s basketball and you have to deal with it. It is the WNBA that dictates its rules and everyone adapts.
In 2026, the World Cup will take place in September, at the time of the American league playoffs. If French women are concerned, not sure they are going through the Atlantic this time again.
It is however the first teaching of this missed Euro: France needs all its players and all its strength to shine.
Opposition too weak up to the final square
The second concern also comes from the level of international women’s basketball. Before the half against Spain, apart from a first game tense against Turkey at the opening of a tournament, France has crushed everything since the Games final.
To qualify, she broke records of points and difference against Ireland or Israel. In Piraeus, Switzerland or Lithuania have not weighed heavy either.
Since the Olympic Games, the route has been too simple against overly weak opponents. When the slope was raised before reaching the summit, the Blue did not be up to it because they have lost the habit of high intensity matches. This is a real problem but for once, it is not their fault.
A game that has liquefied
However, they are responsible for the third explanation. Both against Spain and against Italy, two adversaries within its reach, France has lost everything that makes its strength: both its doubly catastrophic address as its inner game, its hardness and in the end, its confidence. France was denied and found itself without solution.
Who to put this observation on your back? To the staff who did not find the formula to adapt and then bounce back at the end of the tournament; to the youth of an inexperienced group at this level; To the players as a whole who did not know how to forget the cruel disappointment of a failed semi-final and who will spend a few white nights to ruminate. “We assume everything,” continues Toupane. We will try to assume together and find solutions for the future ”.
Girls’ failure is also a situation to meditate for the other French team, that of boys. She too will play her euro at the end of August-early September without several of her stars (Wembanyama, Gobert, Fournier).
They have just remembered that it is not enough to have an Olympic silver medal to get on the podium of a European championship that follows. “We hope that the girls will show us the way” predicted Boris Diaw the manager of the Blues Friday before the duel against Spain. One path but not this one because it was not the right one.
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