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Opposed to its best enemy, France lost in the final of the European basketball championship on Sunday against Spain (88-76) which obtained its fourth coronation.
Spanish basketball players won their fourth European championship title after those of 2009, 2011 and 2015 by largely beating France, 88 to 76, on Sunday September 18 in the final in Berlin.
Spain relied on the brothers Juancho and Willy Hernangomez (27 and 14 points) to win with a largely renewed team compared to the one that had been crowned world champion in 2019.
La Roja has once again triumphed over its best enemy, France, after having already dominated it at Euro-2011 (in the final), at the Olympics-2012, at Euro-2015 at home or even at the Olympics-2016. . Spain, the best nation of the 21st century on the Old Continent, has now won four of the last six Euros.
The Pau brothers and Marc Gasol retired, another sibling has donned the clothes of executioner of the Blues: Willy and Juancho Hernangomez. The 37-year-old veteran Rudy Fernandez, the last representative of the famous generation of “golden children”, had never really removed them.
Touched by grace, the interior of the Denver Nuggets Juancho Hernangomez (27 points) bullied the Blues at long distance. He who was shooting at 30% success behind the line, signed a 7/9 (78%). His brother Willy, who also plays in the United States with the New Orleans Pelicans, added 14 points and finished with the MVP trophy for his consistency throughout the tournament.
Spanish defensive Furia
Largely rebuilt after the Tokyo Games, this Spanish team had only eight players who had already played in a major tournament (but still the same coach, the Italian Sergio Scariolo, titled for the fourth time). France seemed to have the advantage of experience with players like Evan Fournier (23 points) and Rudy Gobert, although disappointing in the final (6 points and 6 rebounds).
The Spanish defensive fury unseated the French from the start, overwhelmed by the stakes and guilty of too many loss of balls (19 in all), as since the start of the tournament.
Spain widened a maximum gap of 21 points in the first period and always led the race, despite a return to -3 from Vincent Collet’s men at the start of the third quarter under the impulse of Gerschon Yabusele (13 points).
The pain is intense for the French Olympic vice-champions, “not coming to finish second”, as they repeated, a year after another final lost at the Tokyo Olympics. Their only European and international title dates back to Euro-2013, in the time of Tony Parker.
Dennis Schroder’s Germany (26 points), beaten in the semi-finals by the Spaniards, took the bronze medal by outclassing Poland 82 to 69.
With AFP