The France team meets Spain this Sunday in the final of Eurobasket 2022.
French and Spaniards have met many times over the past twenty years, giving rise to a rivalry that has no equal in European basketball.
The clashes between the two nations have often turned in favor of Spain, but the Blues still have some good memories on which to rely to approach this final.
From his sofa in Los Angeles, Nicolas Batum does not miss a crumb of this Eurobasket.
The captain of the Blues, who skipped the competition to better prepare for the coming season with the Clippers, pushes behind his teammates, defends the leaders Evan Fournier and Rudy Gobert when things are rocking… and if we are to believe his Twitter account , comes close to cardiac arrest when the Blues come back from hell, as against Turkey and Italy.
More serene after the total control semi-final against Poland, the Normand already salivates for what awaits the French team on Sunday: a final against good old Spain, hereditary enemy of the nation.
🇫🇷 vs 🇪🇸
And we really thought we could have something different?
😅
— Nicolas Batum (@nicolas88batum) September 16, 2022
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"We hate each other but we respect each other", summarized Batum before the quarter-final between the two teams at the 2016 Olympics, which had turned into carnage for the Blues (92-67 defeat).
A clash among many others in what constitutes the greatest rivalry in European basketball.
It's very simple, for 20 years, the two nations have found themselves face to face in almost every major competition.
With the common denominator of a "muy caliente" atmosphere, between the French who are not always very good losers and the Spaniards who are masters in the art of making money.
Among the most burning memories, we will mention three:
London Olympics
quarter-final
.
In a fourth quarter with a line, the Blues end up losing their nerves by dint of seeing the unbearable Navarro, Calderon and Fernandez flopping (
simulating
) at all costs, contesting, grumbling, chambering before hiding in the petticoats of the arbitrator.
Batum cracks and sticks one to Navarro.
"It will give them a good reason to flop (
simulate
)", said the winger after this narrow defeat (59-66).
Semi-final of Euro 2013.
There is everything in this match, the false start of the Blues, the mythical rant of Tony Parker at half-time (
at 31'45 on the following video
), the comeback crazy, the match point for Spain, the extension and finally "the most beautiful victory in the history of French basketball" (75-72), according to TP, leader of the rebellion with his 32 points.
The Blues will then seek their first international title against Lithuania.
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Quarter-final of the 2014 World Cup. Spain, which crushed the Blues in the group stage (88-64), intends to win its World Cup, played at home.
But in the quarters, the France team, deprived of Tony Parker, Nando De Colo and Joakim Noah, teaches him the lesson.
The young Rudy Gobert disgusts Pau Gasol in the racket, and the Blues take off at the end of the match.
It's the famous “THOMAS HEURTEL DONNE MOI TON SHORT” by commentator David Cozette, after a stratospheric three-point shot from the French leader to give the French an 8-point lead with one minute remaining.
The absolute foot.
The Spaniards will have their revenge a year later, by eliminating France in the semi-finals of the Euro in Lille.
In general, moreover, the Gasol generation kicked the buttocks of the Blues much more often than the reverse, and during the last final to date between the two nations, during Euro 2011, it was Spain who won (98-85).
“Spain has the best basketball school, the one that has dominated the continent for 20 years, recognized Vincent Collet on Friday, before knowing the result of the other semi-final.
Everyone has tried to challenge him this supremacy without always succeeding.
»
Certainly, in this year 2022, the landscape has changed a lot on the Spanish side.
The Gasol brothers enjoy the retirement sipping cocktails, Ricky Rubio and Sergio Llull are injured.
Eight out of twelve players are playing their first international tournament there.
Fortunately, there is still veteran Rudy Fernandez (37), a remnant of the fiercest battles and who will want to continue the tradition, six years after the last confrontation.
But the Blues warmed up well by biting the Poles' calves for 40 minutes, and did not plan to lower the intensity.
Especially not against the Spaniards.
A piece of history will still be played out this Sunday in Berlin.
And like all of us, Nicolas Batum will be in front of his TV with the popcorn.
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