The Promised Land has become one of all possibilities for Frédéric Bourdillon.
For four seasons, the 30-year-old basketball player has fulfilled an old childhood dream, playing in the Israeli championship.
Better.
Last season he was able to wear the legendary tunic of the Maccabi Tel Aviv club, with which he won the league title.
“It's more than a club,” he says.
Playing it seemed inaccessible to me, especially with my background.
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As a kid, the native of Grasse watched on TV the matches of his idol Sarunas Jasikevicius, the Lithuanian leader who then ignited the game of Maccabi in the early 2000s. A passion for the nation club, the other name of Maccabi, which even pushed, as a teenager, to put up with ten hours of travel by bus to see him play against Asvel, in the Euroleague. Since that time, he swears by the Israeli championship and its hot atmosphere. Israel is also one of the first countries to have reopened its cinemas to the public thanks to the vaccination campaign implemented in the country.
His former associates from the Center Fédéral Paris, the school of future French basketball nuggets, can attest to this.
"I talked about it all the time, I had to force-feed my friends Evan (Fournier), Joffrey (Lauvergne) or Léo (Westermann)", laughs the one who now plays under the colors of the Hapoël Holon club, with which he won, in April, the title of the Balkan League, which sees teams from the countries of this geographical area compete against each other.
“But for me,” he continues, “my kif was not the NBA, it was these European championships where we played basketball in a unique atmosphere.
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Difficult entry into the professional world
But before reaching the soil of Israel, Frédéric Bourdillon, who plays from this Thursday the Final 8 of the Fiba Champions League in Russia, took many side roads. Coming from a family where basketball was "the only sport practiced", Bourdillon was spotted at a very young age by the hope center in Antibes, then by the Chalon training center, where he entered a year ahead of time. '' integrate the Federal Center. But the silver medalist with the French selection, during Euro U18 in 2009, fails to confirm his potential in the professional world. While his friends from the Federal Center flew to big European clubs or to the NBA, he landed in Charleville-Mézières in Nationale 1, the third level in France.
“I did not want to be satisfied with the bench in a pro team, I had to play, that I have playing time, explains the one who won the Coupe de France with Chalon, in 2011. At 21 or 22 years old, I no longer considered me a young person. I am very proud to have come back down to N1 and to have climbed the ranks step by step. It is rare, this kind of course. It is gratifying. It shows many that going back and down a step is okay. "
In Charleville he climbed in Pro B from the first year then went the following season to Rueil in N1.
Author of a full season in the Parisian suburbs, he was contacted by Antibes, who had just gone down to Pro B. It was in “his heart club” that his destiny changed.
While discussing with one of his partners who evolved in Israel, he learns by chance that he can, thanks to his mother of Jewish religion, obtain the passport and go there as a local player if he does his "alyah". ".
"It is the fact of applying for a passport to go and live in Israel," he explains.
It's not like a pilgrimage.
It is not religious.
For me, it was mostly the possibility of making a dream come true and playing in Israel.
"
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The offers are not long in coming.
His departure, either.
Since then, he has adapted perfectly to his new life.
"I do not read Hebrew but I speak it enough to get by, assures the one, whose dad is a leader at the Stade Français women's basketball club in Paris.
Either way, everything is in English.
I also attend parties and events because it's festive, but it's not religious.
I use the phone on Shabbat, for example.
I really enjoy life here.
There is a mixed population, people come from all over the world.
You can feel it.
They are enjoying life.
Even during the last confinement, we could go to the beach.
The weather is good all the time and the food is wonderful.
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End his career in Antibes
For four years, the former international A 'has only once felt insecure. “When I was in Rishon, shortly after I arrived, the sirens started ringing, it was so loud I felt it was coming from inside my apartment. Right after, we heard two explosions. The Iron Dome had just destroyed missiles arriving on Tel Aviv. I was the only one panicked, everyone was in the stairwell waiting for it to end, like it was normal. "
A great travel lover, Bourdillon also takes the opportunity whenever he can to visit the region.
“I went to Jerusalem, in front of the Western Wall where you can feel the weight of religion and history, in Egypt for the Pyramids or in Jordan to visit Petra,” he lists.
I am fulfilled, but my goal would be to finish my career in Antibes.
I would like to get involved and take over the club with friends.
I am also considering opening restaurants with basketball friends.
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By then he could add a new line to his record with Holon on the occasion of the Final 8 of the Champions League Fiba (C3).
Israel has indeed become the land of all possibilities for Fred Bourdillon.
