Exceptional guest on the Stephen Brunch show on Sunday on RMC, the former leader of the French team Tony Parker is very confident about the future of the French basketball team. Led by their star Victor Wembanyama, the Blues will have a chance to win their first title since 2013 this summer at Euro 2025.
“I would have loved to play with Wemby.” Tony Parker and Victor Wembanyama will never be associated with the French team, however, “TP” having stopped his international career in 2016 while the Spurs giant, 21, is barely beginning his adventure with the Blues. A slightly frustrating adventure marked by an Olympic final against Team USA and a silver medal won last summer in Paris. But for TP, the future looks golden for the Tricolores despite the departure of Vincent Collet, “the best coach in the history of the French team”, according to the former quadruple NBA champion.
“When you have gold, you make an impression”
Exceptional guest on the Stephen Brunch show on Sunday on RMC, Tony Parker felt that the FFBB made the “right choice” by appointing Freddy Fauthoux to the position of coach. “It has proven itself,” he remarks before putting a little friendly pressure on the “Wemby” generation a few months before Euro 2025 (August 27 – September 14).
“They have a generation that is multi-medal winners but it’s not the same when you have a gold medal. When you have it, you make an impression”, recalls the one who won the last title of the Blues, in 2013 in the Euro. “There were the two Olympic finals (2021, 2024), it’s huge but here, we have to make it happen. We need a gold medal if we want to show that we are a nation that is strong, that competes with a nation like Spain.”
-“In 2028, I hope we can compete with the United States”
Confident for this year, TP is thinking above all of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in four years: “With the generation that is arriving, Risacher, Sarr, Nolan Traoré, all the young people who are arriving, I think that in 2028 we are going to have a great team of France I hope we can compete with the United States.” A USA-France rematch would look great.
