With a smile, Jean-Pierre Siutat stated the obvious. “It’s still a South-West network here”noted the president of the French Basketball Federation (FFBB), on September 25 during the press conference presenting Frédéric Fauthoux, the new coach of the Blues.
At 51, the latter begins his mandate on Thursday, November 21, with a trip to Cyprus as part of qualifying for Euro 2025 (6 p.m., on the DAZN platform). And with the former international leader (47 caps) at its head, the French men's basketball team takes on a serious South-West accent. More precisely from a small corner located between Chalosse (Landes) and Béarn (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).
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Player, the kid from Horsarrieu, in the south of the Landes, was the man of a single club: the Elan Béarnais Pau-Orthez (which has since become Pau-Lacq-Orthez), stronghold of French basketball between the years 1980 and the beginning of the 2000s. The leader notably played alongside Boris Diaw, before the former captain of the Blues – now general manager of the France team –, does not cross the Atlantic to the NBA. It is also in this club, at the “almost identical gaming culture from pros to young people”, that he trained as a coach once his sneakers were put away.
Upon his appointment, replacing a Vincent Collet with fifteen years in office and eight medals in fourteen international competitions, “Petitou” – his nickname when he played, in relation to his 1.80 m, quite distant according to him from “this forest of giants” basketball – immediately checked the name of Laurent Vila to assist him. “It was my priorityinsisted this week the Landes technician, in a cross-interview on the site BeBasket. A no-brainer. If I had the honor and the chance to obtain this position, I would definitely do it with Laurent. »
Because if, at 49 years old, the current coach of Strasbourg, in the French championship (Betclic Elite) has a solid CV, the connection between the two men goes back a long time. “When I started, when I was coach of the youngest of Pau-Nord-Est [où évoluent les jeunes sections paloises]he was at the head of the Elan Béarnais training center, and we already had discussions about basketball, in general”explained Frédéric Fauthoux during his induction.
“Establishing a strong culture”
French basketball has long had the accent of a broad South-West. President Jean-Pierre Siutat – who is not standing for re-election in the federal elections in December – trained at the helm of the Tarbes women's club, and Patrick Beesley, long-time national technical director, explored the Landes region from which Frédéric Fauthoux comes.
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