The French Basketball Federation made official on Monday the departure of France team coach Vincent Collet, after a fifteen-year mandate concluded with a new medal, silver at the Paris Olympic Games.
“Normally I’ll finish,” declared the 61-year-old Norman after the defeat in the Olympic final against the United States on August 10 (98-87), not completely closing the door to an extension as he was coming to the end of his contract.
“We have decided by mutual agreement with Vincent that he will no longer be the coach of the French senior team,” declared the president of the French Federation (FFBB) Jean-Pierre Siutat during a press conference organized in Paris.
The name of his successor will be made official “at the latest at the end of September” he added, while a window for qualification for Euro-2025 is looming at the end of November.
Collet explained that he had “weighed the pros and cons”. “That’s what made me evolve. We can consider that it may never stop, that was one of the hypotheses, but what took over is that it was the right time for this final clap”, he explained.
“Of course it’s not easy. Otherwise it would mean that I didn’t love this French team as much as I loved them. It’s a very strong love story: for the moment it’s a difficult feeling for me, like a mourning curve to go through. I have to digest it but I think it’s the right decision” added the technician, closing “more than a chapter of my life as a coach, a chapter of my life in general”, and “15 unforgettable years”.
– The only title of the Blues –
Collet was appointed special advisor to the national technical management of the FFBB, particularly in the training of players and technicians, with departure clauses in the event of a proposal as head coach in the Euroleague and assistant in the NBA.
However, he ruled out the idea of taking the reins of another team.
Collet leaves his position as coach with, by far, the best record at the head of Les Bleus, which he took over in 2009 replacing Michel Gomez: eight medals, including one title (Euro-2013), the only one in their history, snatched from the Spain of the Pau Gasol generation, who has so often been their executioner.
The French team has won as many medals in fifteen years with Collet as in more than 80 years before him, and he has brought them eight of their ten podium finishes since 2000.
Including a frustrating last one at Bercy, where she held her own against the Americans like three years earlier in Tokyo (82-87), less than a year after being knocked out in the first round of the World Cup in Jakarta.
And after a chaotic group stage, concluded with a rout against Germany (85-71).
– A privileged Frenchman –
“I have always tried to influence my different teams so that the ‘we’ takes precedence over the ‘me’, and I believe that this year is the best example of this: it was after the group stage, when the ‘me’ ended up becoming ‘we’ that we became great,” Collet stressed on Monday.
After the Olympic final, captain Nicolas Batum paid tribute to the “best French coach in history”, a basketball enthusiast to the point of obsession, a hard worker with a tendency to insomnia.
A former full-back, a coquetry of destiny, in Sainte-Adresse (Seine-Maritime), and whose successor will have a heavy task.
“Since the end of the Games we have received proposals (…) from foreign candidates. We are really thinking about the subject. But I would rather favour a French coach: we have young coaches with high potential, a training course that works very well (…) we think that the opportunities and possibilities in France are significant”, declared the national technical director Alain Contensoux.
Bourg-en-Bresse coach Frédéric Fauthoux is cited by several media outlets as the favourite.
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