Tokyo (AFP)

On September 11, 2019, in Dongguan, China, the French basketball team achieved one of the greatest exploits in its history, by beating the United States for the first time in official competition, in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. (89-79).

After nine defeats in the Olympic tournaments (1948, 1984, 2000 twice, 2012 and 2016) and World (1950, 1954, 1963), the Blues who find the United States on Sunday (2:00 p.m. French) in Tokyo, finally held their victory, of a completely different value than the three won in friendly matches (in 1979, 1983 and 1986).

Admittedly this American formation was a pale variation of the past "Dream Teams", deprived of its biggest stars of the NBA who had decided to ignore it.

But she was not devoid of talent and it had been almost 14 years and 58 matches since the USA had lost in official competitions.

The performance was collective, because these French are "dogs", had exulted Evan Fournier afterwards, but four players were particularly preponderant, including three, no coincidence, evolving - and still evolving - in the NBA.

Evan Fournier had shown the way (22 pts), recalling the scorer he knows to be every night in the regular season in the North American league.

And what about Rudy Gobert ultra-domineering in the racket, paying dearly for the lack of adversity offered inside (21 pts, 16 rebounds, 3 blocks)?

Very effective offensively, he also embodied the defensive virtues that are part of the DNA of the Blues.

Proof that the time when the giant Frédéric Weis had a dunk crushed on his head in mondovision by Vince Carter, in a group match at the Sydney Games in 2000, was well over.

- And Fournier screamed -

This victory, France also owed it to Frank Ntilikina.

The Knicks leader had been able to put the team in the right direction at the end of the 3rd quarter and at the very beginning of the 4th, by managing seven points in a row to drop the score from 71-74 to 78-76.

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As for Nando De Colo (18 pts), he showed great coolness on the line at the end of the game to hold the result.

The road to the feat also had its turn in the corridor leading from the locker room to the parquet floor, just before kick-off, when Fournier unexpectedly galvanized his troops.

Instead of delivering his little expected speech in the middle of the melee formed by the French, he turned to the American team who were gathering nearby and poured out his rage in flowery language that stunned everyone.

Vincent Collet will compare this moment "to the quarter-final of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, when the players of the fifteenth of France had challenged the New Zealand haka by sticking their nose to that of the All Blacks".

Again with the victory at the end (20-18).

Fournier assured that he had not premeditated this blow of blood, which had the merit of sending a clear message to Team USA and above all of freeing his teammates, Nicolas Batum assuring that it had "unstuck, relaxed".

"The team in its approach to this match had both the excitement, which prevails for this kind of match, and the conviction. That we could embarrass them a lot, even without knowing where it could be. The fact of having this rather conquering attitude, but also the lucidity of having a fairly fair appreciation of the balance of power, was decisive ", summarizes Collet.

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