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Historical result of France against the United States. Ye Aung Thu / AFP

The French basketball team achieved a historic feat by beating for the first time in competition the legendary United States team (89-79) in the quarter-finals of the World Cup-2019, Wednesday, September 11 in Dongguan, China. The striker Nicolas Batum will face Argentina in the semi-final on Friday (September 13th) in Beijing.

The feat will remain in the history of French basketball. The Blues have managed to beat the United States in the quarterfinals in China for the World Cup 2019. This is the first failure in official competition of a 100% NBA team since 2006, during the semi-final of the World Cup against Greece (101-95).

"We must be " dogs " in the field "

" We came to win. In 2014, our dreams have passed (Mondial en Espagne, ed). Tonight we showed a lot of determination and that's why we won. Losing to Australia without playing our basketball served us. We must be "dogs" in the field, "says Evan Evan on Canal + Sport.

" What emotion, we were ready for this game we wanted to redeem after the defeat against Australia we want to go to the end we were persuaded to beat them we are a confident group that can go to the end, " says Frank Ntilikina. " We will face the quarter finals the best team of the competition, but until proven otherwise, we have all our chances, " said Vincent Collet the coach of the Blues before this confrontation.

The French led by ten points in the third quarter before seeing the Americans go ahead and count up to 7 points ahead eight minutes from time (72-65). But Team USA paid for its lack of success, limited to three points in the last five minutes.

Rudy Gobert and Evan Fournier at the top

Despite 29 points and 6 rebounds by Donovan Mitchell, the back of Utah Jazz, the Americans of the legendary coach Gregg Popovich failed to keep up the pace imposed by France, which featured four players playing last season in the NBA.

It is also the "Frenchies" who carried the Blues, the pivot of the Jazz Rudy Gobert (21 points, 16 rebounds) and the back of Magic Evan Fournier (22 points, 4 assists) in mind.

At the Rio Olympics in 2016, the USA had been hooked by the Blues, snatching a 100-97 success thanks to the 30 points of Klay Thompson.

This is the second consecutive semi-final for the French team, which lost in 2014 at this stage against Serbia. Its best result at the global level is the final of the 2000 Olympics lost face ... in the United States.