France Wins Fifth U20 European Championship Title Over Spain

This is the fifth U20 European Championship title for the French women after those of 2005, 09, 14 and 23, and at the same time it prevented Spain from winning a tenth. It took heart and talent to go and get the trophy against a Spanish team boosted by Valencia pivot Awa Fam (1.92m), who had been included in the Olympic pre-selection, and who accumulated 20 points, 14 rebounds and 3 assists that evening. They simply had to be very strong to bring Spain to its knees, who had dominated the competition until then with in order +65 points against Montenegro, +57 against Sweden, +50 against Portugal, +36 against Lithuania, +48 against Poland and +27 against Italy in the semi-final!

Angevine Marine Dursus (17 points) was excellent, but if we have to reserve a special mention for this final, it goes to the small point guard Manoe Cisse (1.62m), who has gained volume at Champagne Basket by playing a major role (27 minutes per match) in Ligue 2, and who has successfully taken on her responsibilities in attack (21 points at 9/11 shooting)

Daniela Dibanzuela. ©FIBA

Spain starts off with a bang

During the first minutes, the Spanish women put on a real basketball display on both sides of the court and they flew away with the score: 0-3, 2-9, 4-13, 8-22… That’s 14 points ahead.

It was by increasing their defensive pressure that the French began to disrupt the beautiful Spanish mechanics to completely turn the game around. They came back to the score (22-24) to take up to a seven-point lead (37-30, 41-34); an advantage reduced to five units at the break (41-36) with a great general address: 51.6% with a 4/7 three-pointer.

Spain will erase its deficit (43-43) then try a breakaway (46-51), but the Bleuettes will this time again recover via Manoe Cissé in particular to lead 59-53 at the end of the third quarter. It smelled very good when the Bleuettes had 11 active points (70-61) with 4’49 left on five points in a row from Manoe Cissé, again, including a basket on the head of Awa Fam (!). Marine Dursus was the player of the money time and on one of her layups with a free throw, France seemed out of danger: 76-63 at 2’48.

The Spanish then tried a last-ditch push, which produced some results and some scares, but the French managed well enough for them to retain their hard-won advantage.

The boxscore is ICI.

2024-07-14 19:38:06
#Heroic #French #U20s #retain #European #crown

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