Saitama (Japan) (AFP)

Too fickle and dominated in aggressiveness, the French basketball team, finalist of the last Euro, started the Olympic tournament badly at the Tokyo Games, beaten by a catchy team from Japan (74-70), Tuesday at the Saitama Super Arena.

This setback is unwelcome for the Blue, contenders for a podium and placed in a group B raised in the first round, with for other opponents, as of Friday, the Nigerians who were beaten (81-72) by the great American favorites, in quest for a seventh consecutive gold medal.

To the immense frustration of the silver medal at Euro-2021, resulting from a defeat in the final against Serbia, is added barely a month later a big disappointment for the French women, who did not obviously not well turned the page.

They had in front of them, at a morning schedule (10h00 local) never easy to understand, Japanese women with a fast and precise game that they are not used to facing and who are decidedly not successful, since to Rio in 2016, the Blue, then already qualified for the quarter-finals, lost (79-71) in the group stage.

This new setback has more consequences, while the format is very different, with three groups of four teams, qualifying the first two of each and the two best third.

An achievable goal, provided we win against Nigeria.

For this, they will have to show more aggressiveness on both sides of the floor, which they sorely missed against Japan, 10th nation in the women's ranking of the International Federation, whose best result at the Olympics is a fifth place in 1976. to Montreal.

"The match was difficult. We had ups and downs individually and collectively. We made too many mistakes in defense," said coach Valérie Garnier, deploring the 23 free throws offered (17 transformed).

"There are mistakes we could make earlier."

- "We got screwed" -

"Our lack of aggressiveness played a big role in attack and especially in defense. We are known to defend well. There, 74 points taken, it is too much. We have been drilled many times, that us costs the victory ", railed Sandrine Gruda, the only one to float on the side of the Blue (18 pts, 9 rebounds) despite a size advantage inside too rarely taken advantage of

# photo1

Illustration of the words of the pivot, the decisive three-point action achieved by captain Maki Takada (10 pts), by obtaining the fault after a basket in penetration, to regain the advantage (69-68) at 1 min 15 sec of the term.

Too often, the Japanese have managed to disorientate the French defense to afford boulevards to the basket.

Forty-five seconds later, it was a three-point shot from Moeko Nagaoka (11 pts) which proved fatal, illustrating a good overall Japanese skill at long distance (11/27).

His six points erased the good final sprint of the Blue, who had taken the water at the start of the third quarter, with a terrible 13-2 conceded, before Sandrine Gruda kept them alive with eight points scored to pick up at three lengths (52-49), well helped by Gabby Williams, who managed a full match (9 pts, 5 rebounds, 4 interceptions, 2 blocks).

Silver medalist in London-2012, fourth in Rio in 2016, France will have to show a whole different face against the Nigerians on Friday.

"Being angry and disappointed is part of the process. You use it to move on. We know the matches ahead, we have to be ready," Gruda warned.

© 2021 AFP