The premature elimination of the France team in this 2023 World Cup, after only two games, will be commented on and analyzed at length. Nicolas Batum and Rudy Gobert have already delivered first impressions, hot after the defeat against Latvia. Vincent Collet logically followed.
The first notably mentioned the choices of the national federation when the second spoke of the attitude of the Blues, too tender for his taste. For his part, the coach also pointed the finger at the behavior of his team.
“It also reminds us of humility”, he answers at a press conference in the face of this huge failure for tricolor basketball. “I didn’t say it loud enough before we started the competition but we can’t perform at this level in such a competitive concert if we don’t have the humility to fight. That doesn’t preclude ambition. Of course you also need talent, but what we’ve been able to do in recent years hasn’t just been about talent. To believe so would be a fundamental error. It was a constant job to be a great team. And there clearly on these two matches we were not one. »
Ambition does not preclude humility
The coach of the Blues prefers, like his pivot, to emphasize the excess of confidence of his troops, rather than on the external appearance, as Batum did.
“Before talking about that, we must already focus on us. It was a good feeling to announce the objectives loud and clear,” reacts Vincent Collet after the statements of the Clippers player. “But was it realistic given the different seasons that could have been completed this year? Really, humility for me is at the heart of what happened. You have to put it back and start again. We know what we were able to do not long ago. We must be able to do it again, but on the condition of working with our values, with our identity and we have moved away from it a little this year. »
Humility, it will take tomorrow to play a match for butter against Lebanon then continue with the classification matches to finish at best 17th in the competition.
