A formality, a walk in the park!
Three days after having suffered to get rid (73-67) of Montenegro in Pau, the Blues of basketball have, this time, experienced no difficulty to win (78-54), this Monday, in the small room of Kaposvar, Hungary in their 2nd 2023 World Cup qualifying match (August 25 to September 10, 2023 in Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines).
After a few minutes of play, the suspense had already completely evaporated (4-18, 7th then 13-32, 13th).
With this second success in two games, Vincent Collet's men are at the top of Group E and take a good option for the next round.
In this format, the results of this first round will count when crossing with the 3 best teams of group F (Lithuania, Czech Republic, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria) for the rest of the qualifications.
Nice job guys, congratulations 👏🏽 https://t.co/jWKbdPudcp
- Nicolas Batum (@ nicolas88batum) November 29, 2021
A perfect start to the campaign, therefore, for a French team yet deprived of its stars and Tokyo heroes. The silver medalists of the last Games were in fact not authorized by their clubs to join the selection for this Fiba window because of the conflict between the International Federation and the decision-makers of the NBA and the Euroleague. If some observers feared the accident of the course without the presence of Gobert or Batum - who was one of the first to congratulate the players on social networks - it was not. Les Bleus bis took their responsibilities and met expectations.
Already top scorer last Friday in Pau (18 points), interior Louis Labeyrie once again showed the way forward by registering 19 units (100% on shots).
The bronze medalist at the 2019 World Cup, who had not worn the blue tunic for two years, finished top scorer of the meeting and established his new personal best in the selection.
Another return, the pivot Mouhammadou Jaiteh, bronze medalist at Euro 2015, also distinguished himself with 15 points.
The next meeting of the Blues is set for February 24 and 27 with a double confrontation against Portugal.
The last matches of this first qualifying phase will be played in July with, no doubt, the return of some NBA players.
