Women's Euro Basketball Championship: France, beaten once again by its Spanish rivals, fails again at the gates of the final

The European Championships come and go, but they all look the same. The French women's basketball team lost to Spain (64-65) in the Euro semifinals on Friday, June 27 in Piraeus, Greece. While Les Bleues had the chance to level the score with 0.8 seconds left, thanks to two unexpected free throws, Iliana Rupert saw her second shot go wide. An unfortunate outcome, which left the French team just one point behind their worst rivals and interrupted a run that had been paved with success until then.

This new defeat revives a painful history between the two nations. La Roja has made a habit of making its neighbors its favorite scapegoat in the European Championship: the four European titles won by the Spanish (1993, 2013, 2017, 2019) have been at the expense of France. On Friday, this black streak once again got the better of the good intentions of the Tricolores. "There is not much to say. Bravo to Spain, they knew how to stop us and we didn't have the answers to that ," reacted captain Valériane Ayayi. They played the match they had to play to earn a place in the final.

Les Bleues had gotten off to a good start, taking control of the match from the opening minutes. Aggressive and dominant on the offensive rebound, the Olympic runners-up built a lead of up to ten points in the first half (38-31). Shortly before halftime, however, Jean-Aimé Toupane warned his troops: "The match isn't over yet, and we're playing backwards. Do you want to lose the match? We'll change all the screens!"

A premonitory soap passage: the third quarter was nightmarish for the Tricolores, silent in front of the three-point target (5/30), in a sector which had until then carried them. The Spanish, at the same time, took advantage to nibble away at the gap, chaining a series of nine points to zero in the space of five minutes. Awa Fam (21 points, 9 rebounds), as efficient as ever, allowed the Roja to take control of the match (46-49). This failure, "it's a mixture of everything , analyzed Valériane Ayayi. Since the beginning of the competition, we shot pretty well so we had confidence in our shots. And they let us do it, they pushed us to take the shots but we didn't make them."

Neck and neck in the final ten minutes, Jean-Aimé Toupane's players gritted their teeth to get rid of the Spanish bogeyman, before receiving this final blow, their eyes haggard. As they did two years ago, France stopped at the gates of the final and failed to achieve their objective: to win their first title since 2009. Les Bleues will try to secure an eighth podium finish in a row against Italy or Belgium, who will decide a finalist spot on Friday evening.