By John Rammas/ irammas@eurohoops.net
Berlin, Germany – France played the perfect game in Berlin, beating Poland 54-95 in what was an uncontested result: Vincent Collet’s team dominated from the beginning until the end, conquering a spot in the final. A big contribution came from Moustapha Fall, who replaced Rudy Gobert under the basket for almost 20 minutes.
The Olympiacos center provided some very efficient minutes off the bench, as he already did previously in the competition: he put up an amazing 6 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists performance.
After his best showing in EuroBasket 2022, Moustapha Fall expressed his feelings in the mixed zone. “This was a big game for us, a very important one. Now we’re sure to have at least the silver medal, but that’s not the goal: since the beginning that’s the gold medal, so we’re gonna do our best to take it”,
“We made it easy. Poland is a very good team: they showed us how strong they are all the competition, so we couldn’t disrespect them. But we played great defense from the start, we knew it could have been a complicated night”, he said about the crushing win.
After being part of the group that went to the Olympic Games and came home with a silver medal, Fall made it to EuroBasket 2022 as well. “I’m really blessed to have played two competitions with the national team so far, and two times in the final. It’s a big win for me and for the country: I hope we’re gonna take the gold this time”, he commented.
However, he had to struggle to be called by Vincent Collet, after an injury complicated the process for him: “I’m happy for all the sacrifice I did during the preseason to come back. I was working hard crazy to be able to be here, I wanted to play EuroBasket 2022 because I knew we could have done something big and make so consistency after last year: keep winning and winning”.
“We’re gonna do the same things as always. We don’t disrespect any team, as I said. We always try to play as seriously as possible and when we had a lot of ups and downs during the competition, we never underestimated somebody. We respect everyone and we want to keep doing the same till the end”, he said about the upcoming encounter with Spain, who beat Germany in the other semifinal.
Photo Credit: FIBA.BASKETBALL