This morning’s defeat once morest Serbia promised hell to the French team, plague or cholera to use a somewhat medieval expression. We had hoped for a time for a victory for Japan once morest the Australians to get us out of this quagmire, but the logic was finally respected and so here are the Blues sent into the terrible Chinese claws, for a quarter-final in which they will obviously not be favorites . But how do we say already? Ah yes, impossible is not French.
The scenario might have been different, because if the big victory of the Blues in the opening once morest the Australians owed nothing to anyone and if the defeat once morest Canada did not suffer from any dispute either, this exit from the road once morest Serbia there a few hours is likely to resonate for a long time in the heads of Jean-Aimé Toupane’s daughters. We’re not going to change the world, huh, it seems and according to the rumor that playing Puerto Ricans offers more chances of victory than a match once morest China, but this match will have to be played anyway and to show that the place of the French team in the world Top 8 is not a wild card but the fruit of the work carried out by a group broken by absences, in particular of its potential… five majors. Yes, in full. Sandrine Gruda, Endy Miyem, Olivia Epoupa, Valeriane Vukosavljevic, Marine Johannes, Alix Duchet, Elizabeth II, all are missing in Sydney but, however, this very young and very tinkered group will have shown so far real abilities to transcend, beyond the shortcomings to work for the future, on the ground and on the bench.
Thursday the French will therefore have the opportunity to prove their worth, once morest the Chinese who are devilishly stronger on paper, in all positions and in all weathers. Chinese women who respectively beat South Korea by 63 points, Bosnia by 47, Puerto Rico by 35 and Belgium by 26, the Chinese who held the invincible Americans to a loss of just 13 points, a feat in modern basketball. Against the Chinese it will be necessary to be there and slam the biggest match of their young career for a pack of girls from EDF, following all the Belgians were not so far before the injury of their star Emma Meeseman, but this quarter-final should in no way be a missed act in advance because the blue tank has enough fuel to create the feat. The leadership of Gabby Williams, the grinta of Marine Fauthoux, the address of Alexia Chartereau, the defense of Sarah Michelso many qualities specific to this team and which can leave us dreaming of an improbable hope, because we are not going to repeat the proverb written a little higher at the end of the introduction.
No Team USA in the quarterfinals, the worst is avoided, even if China will present themselves to France on Thursday as the big favorite of this match. Will it be on France Télévisions? Yes. Do we believe it? Yes. A little bit eh, but we still believe in it.
