The Serbs beat France 63-54 in the Euro-2021 women’s basketball final on Sunday night in Valence (Spain) and won their second continental title after 2015, already against France.
For the French, this is the fifth consecutive defeat in the final of a European Championship after 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019. They will still have to wait to add a third title after 2001 and 2009.
At the final buzzer, the faces of Endy Miyem’s teammates were very logically closed, hands on hips and heads bowed. For the players of Valérie Garnier, this fifth silver medal in a row really tastes very bitter, as they had set themselves the goal of winning the European title and finally succeeding the “12 golden girls” of 2001. and at the “Braqueuses” of 2009.
Never in the game
It is not yet for this year, the fault of a failed final, taken by the wrong end by French women failing in attack, like the sparkling and molten captain Endy Miyem in the semi-finals against Belarus, but extinct. Sunday by the suffocating defense of the Serbs.
In the final, the Blue fell on a formidable team from Serbia, which relied in part on the team that had beaten France in the Euro final in 2015 (five of the twelve Serbian players in 2021 were present in Budapest in 2015).
The French left a lot of energy running after the score after conceding a 13-0 at the start of the second quarter (31-18). The wind of revolt initiated by Valériane Vukosavljevic at the end of the second quarter, and the gap of five points at the break (31-26) were only a sham, because the Serbs dominated all sectors of the game, taking advantage of the mistakes of the France team.
The players of Valérie Garnier kept up the hope under the leadership of Alexia Chartereau at the end of the third quarter but never managed to recover from a 10-0 conceded at the return of the locker room.
Make way for the Olympics
For the staff it will be necessary to succeed in remobilizing and for the players the rebound is expected very quickly, because the summer of 2021 is very far from over for the Blue. After this first half dedicated to Euro-2021, according to the formula put forward by coach Valérie Garnier when launching the preparation, they will tackle the other summer objective, namely the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Placed in a pool with the invincible Americans, six-fold reigning Olympic champions and once again big favorites for the title in Japan, the French will first have to get out of this group to reach the quarter-finals, before dreaming of a possible podium at the Olympics, on which the “Braqueuses” were mounted in 2012 in London, with the silver medal.