A French basketball team made up of young players will face Armenia twice in Los Angeles on June 14 and 17.
In all its history, the French men’s basketball team has never faced Armenia. But it will be done next month with a double confrontation in Los Angeles. For these two matches against the 87th nation in the world, France, fifth, will not appear with its NBA or Euroleague stars, who will then be on vacation or in the last phase of their championship, but with young players who have very few selections in blue.
“As part of our excellent relations with the Armenian Federation, we were offered to play two international matches in Los Angeles. This double confrontation seemed to us an interesting opportunity to set up a team made up of young players who are already international or who have the potential to become one in the near future. Since the introduction of the FIBA World Cup and EuroBasket qualifying windows, Team France Basket’s talent pool has allowed the French national team to maintain its rank at the highest level. This type of initiative makes it possible to extend the work undertaken in recent years, ”says Jacques Commères, the director of performance and the teams in France.
Players with different profiles
For these two matches, we will therefore find players with very different profiles. Some have already worn the blue jersey during international windows (Kamagaté, Massa, Begarin, Benitez), others play in Betclic Elite but have never had their chance in blue (Hifi, Besson, Barbitch, Gombault) or else left early for the United States and stayed away from the radar of the national team (Ayayi, Hoard). The France A team, meanwhile, will begin its preparation for the World Cup on July 28 in Pau.
The French group: Hugo Benitez (22 years old, Bourg-en-Bresse), Nadir Hifi (21 years old, Le Portel), Joël Ayayi (23 years old, Lakeland), Hugo Besson (22 years old, Boulogne-Levallois), Milan Barbitch (21 years old, Fos -sur-Mer), Juhann Begarin (20 years old, Paris), Abdoulaye N’doye (25 years old, Le Mans), Jaylen Hoard (24 years old, Hapoel Tel Aviv), Mathis Dossou Yovo (22 years old, St-Quentin), Ismaël Kamagaté (22 years old, Paris), Bodian Massa (25 years old, Strasbourg), Stéphane Gombauld (26 years old, Nancy)
