After this semi-final won against Belgium, Valerian Ayayi was well placed to talk about the physical aspect of the match. In the fight against Emma Meesseman and the Belgian interiors, she gave her all, helping the Blues to multiply the interceptions (14) and the offensive rebounds (19).
Facing the “Belgian Cats”, Jean-Aimé Toupane's team knew that they had to hold out physically.
“It's physical, but it's been since the start of the tournament. We know that there are only teams that are physically strong and the more the matches go on, the closer the final gets. And everyone wants to go for the final. Everyone gives their all, the players are on the ground, giving everything. Afterwards, it's a basketball that suits us too, we have a few players who like to score two or three shots so it's cool.”
On the Belgian side, however, we were disturbed by the physical commitment of the Blues.
“There is a lot of disappointment and frustration. But there is no reason to be sad. We once again put up a real fight against this French team, which was able to count on 11 players in the rotations, where it was more complicated for us. We lost 21 balls, we gave them 19 offensive rebounds. That gave them too many second chances and too many points. If we had had more control, discipline and rigor in at least one of these statistics, the match would have been different. Overall, we dominated 15 minutes of the first half, then we let this French team express itself with its euphoria, its energy and its aggressiveness. I am sorry to say this but we played basketball, where it sometimes looked more like a fight on the other side. I am proud to have played basketball for 45 minutes.” explained Rachid Mezianethe (French) coach of Belgium.
But the former assistant to Valérie Garnier at Les Bleues, and current coach of Villeneuve-d'Ascq, does not forget that there is still one match to play for the “Belgian Cats”. For the bronze medal against Australia.
“We have to get our heads straight because we still have this ambition to go get a medal. We're going to have to digest it and try to go to sleep with the desire to go get that bronze medal. We are capable of it. We have proven that we are capable of turning around a lot of situations.” he concludes.
