France s preview of the European Championship: The shortage of insiders and the absence of the main core affects the prospects for the championship

The 2025 European Championship will be held from August 28 to September 15 by Latvia, Finland, Cyprus and Poland. France is assigned to Group D (Katowice Division) and will compete for the quota with Iceland, Slovenia, Poland, Belgium and Israel.

It is worth mentioning that in the last European Championship, France also faced Slovenia led by Doncic in the group stage. In that game, Doncic scored 47 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists, leading Slovenia to defeat France 88-82. This loss also puts France in a relatively low position in the group stage ranking.

Lineup introduction:

In this European Championship, Vinbanyama, Gobert, Fournier, Lesol and Poirier will all be absent. However, there are still many NBA players in the lineup, including Kulibali (Wirees), Rissache (Hawks), Saar (Wirees), and Yabussele (Knicks). They can still line up a high-quality rotation lineup, and their strength cannot be underestimated.

These include: Isaya Cordinier, Kulibali, Sirvan Francisco, Jaylen Holder, Muhammadou Jaith, Ruwau Kabaro, Maledon, Okobo, Rissache, Saar, Matthew Strazeer, Yabuselle.

It is worth mentioning that the French men's basketball team officially announced that Diarbat, Kion and Nelikina will not compete in the European Cup with the team. However, France once again extended an olive branch to Diarbat due to an injury to center Vincent Poirier's right knee and is expected to miss the 2025 European Basketball Championship.

But after consultation with the entourage, Diabat eventually rejected the invitation, claiming to "focus on the upcoming NBA season."

Therefore, this French men's basketball team will face a clear shortage of insiders.

Warm-up record:

So far, France has achieved 4 wins and 0 losses in the warm-up match, including against Montenegro, Britain and Spain in two matches.

August 7, France 81-75 Montenegro

August 9, France 74-67 United Kingdom

August 14, France 75-67 Spain

August 17, France 78-73, Spain

August 25, France 92-77, Greece

, the most impressive one is the reversal victory against Spain. France was once behind by 16 points in the first half, with excellent defense and counterattack in the second half, scoring 20-9 in the final quarter, and the team finally reversed 78-73.

In this game, Kulibali scored 13 points and Stratzel contributed 11 points.

However, after losing Fournier, Vinbanyama and Gobert, the team exposed the shortage of offense and did not do satisfactory in framing protection and assisting defense, which was the biggest obstacle to France's championship.

Record of the last European Championship:

In the 2022 Men's Basketball European Championship, France performed poorly in the group stage and ended the group stage with a record of 3 wins and 2 losses. However, they started a counterattack journey in the knockout stage: in the 18th final, the French team fought two overtimes with Turkey, and finally narrowly won 94-93 to advance; in the quarter-finals, the French team defeated Italy 93-85 in overtime, successfully entering the semi-finals; in the semi-finals, the French team won a huge gap of 95-54 and advanced to the finals. In the final, facing Spain led by Hernan Gomez, France eventually lost to Spain 76-88 and missed the championship.

As of now, the French men's basketball team has participated in the European Championships of 39 times. Since its first European Championship in 1935, the team has won 1 European Championship championship (2013), 3 European Championship runner-up (1949, 2011, 2022), and won 3 silver medals in the Olympic stadium (1948, 2000, 2021).

Abusele will serve as the captain of the team in this European Championship. At last year's Paris Olympics, Abusele made a good competitive performance, which also allowed him to win an NBA contract as he wished.

When talking about the significance of wearing a French men's basketball jersey, Abuselle said: "As Tony Parker said: Winning the NBA championship is great, but winning the championship with the French team is another matter. This is the national championship, a group of good friends gathered together in the summer and spent a month and a half of the game together."

This time, their goal is still to reach the highest podium.