“Normally I finish so it's a match I'll remember for a long time.” This is what he had declared Vincent Collet at a press conference after the defeat against the United States in the final of the Olympic Games. Eighteen days later, according to BeBasket And The Teamthe French team will indeed have a new coach to attack the qualifications for Euro 2025.
After 15 years at the helm of the Blues, the French Basketball Federation has decided to turn the page and not extend the contract of the former SIG and Boulogne-Levallois coach. At 63, Collet leaves his position with the finest record in the history of French basketball: eight medals including gold at the European Championship and two silver at the Olympic Games.
Who will succeed him?
“These fifteen years have been a great privilege for me” he had confided. “I was lucky enough to experience emotions like those of this evening and of the entire Olympic competition, to win medals with this French Team, to be European champion in 2013, to be in the Olympic final twice to finish. So I am obviously happy about all that.”
To succeed him, and time is running out, the Team is making Frédéric Fauthoux (JL Bourg), the big favorite. The trail of a foreign coach is still not current at the FFBB, nor the one that would lead to one of Collet's assistants, whether it is Rudy Nelhomme or Kenny Atkinson (57 years old), new coach of Cleveland.
