As the 2025 Eurobasket is about to begin and Israel readies to take to the court in Katowice against Iceland, on Sunday afternoon they will play one of the top nations in terms of world in France. While the French team is not the same as the one that played at the 2024 Paris Olympics with a number of players unavailable due to injury, Les Bleus are always a threat to medal.

In order to learn more about Frédéric Fauthoux’s squad that includes Maccabi Tel Aviv forward Jaylen Hoard, The Sports Rabbi spoke with veteran L’Equipe journalist Yann Ohnona about France, the expectations, vulnerability and who has been a pleasant surprise through training camp.

“There hasn’t been one single biggest surprise,” Ohnona began. “The most surprising thing is how the players stick together and they look like real friends and not an act. A lot of them were together for some of the youth competitions, Guerschon Yabusele was with Mam Jaiteh and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot. Sylvain Francisco has been a good surprise and he was amazing against Spain twice.

“A year ago the France team used the front court with Victor Wembanyama, Rudy Gobert and Mathias Lessort and we didn’t seem to have a lot of point guards. This year we basically have mo centers, the biggest player is Jaiteh and we have a lot of point guards with Francisco playing well and Theo Maledon having a good season. The games will lean towards the backcourt.”

With a very different team from the one that played a year ago, Ohnona explained how some of the younger and new players will impact the team, including New York Knicks forward Yabusele who was named captain.

“He’s been taking this very seriously and the other players really like what he is doing. Sometimes he expresses too many emotions both in a good and bad way but he is very involved in his role. He seems very liberated since he went back to the NBA and the hype about the dunk on Lebron James at the Olympics so he probably feels great to be one of the main leaders of the team after having been one of the leaders with the more experienced players.”

“Zaccharie Risacher is amazing,” Ohnona continued. “Sometimes he is too shy and into the system but he basically almost never makes a mistake. He may not make a shot but he is so young and impressive in terms of his athleticism and versatility, defense and capacity to attack the rim. He’s going to be amazing 2-3 years from now and a big rock for this team. Bilal Coulibaly has been incredibly athletic and physical. We almost never had such a athletic forward. He’s very good defensively but he needs to take shots and if he does he can stay on the court longer and can be a big, big threat.”

As for Maccabi Tel Aviv forward Jaylen Hoard who will be a part of the Eurobasket for the first time in his career, this will be the opportunity of a lifetime, “The fact that there are no centers with Wembanyama being out and so many injuries in the front court is giving him a big, big chance to shine. The truth is that Hoard has been fitting in very well and is going to have a lot of responsibility behind Yabusele and sometimes alongside him when they play small ball without centers and when Jaiteh commits fouls. Hoard has a very interesting mix of athleticism, defense, shooting, the right state of mind.”

“Hoard’s mom used to be an international player with the French National Team and played a final against Spain who had the mother of the Hernangomez brothers and his father used to play in the French League. France lost track of him when he left for the US and stayed in the US for the early stages of his career and because of that no one really knew about him and his potential because he wasn’t really playing in the NBA other than a few flashes as well as the G-League. Everyone seems to like him and if he has a good campaign he can be a candidate for upcoming ones even if the power forward spot is the most crowded one. He’s expected to play defense and hit some shots to stretch the defenses and to also run.”

Due to France having a new mix of players, it’s still too early to see who may be the players who will carry the team Ohnona explained, “It’s impossible to say if we have a player that will carry the team, we don’t have a guy like Evan Fournier who used to do that. So they may be stuck because of the system or the defense or what the opponent is doing. It’s a weakness but also a strength because we have a few guys who can unlock a situation including Francisco as he did in the Lithuanian finals. Yabuesle is a leader who is a leader but I am not sire you would go to him in this case. It’s quite difficult to ay and it’s tough to identify someone in this role, so France will miss a player like Fournier with his experience and capacity to break the opponent’s system and do something out of the books.”

As for vulnerabilities, Ohnona sees a couple of issues that could cause some problems for the team, “France is vulnerable inside as we are missing the centers that we had at the Olympics. The tallest player is Alex Sarr who doesn’t have enough experience to make a true impact as he is not strong enough and he’s probably going to be grant but in 2-3 years from now. But at the moment there is hesitation which is normal at his age and not having the experience playing FIBA basketball.”

“This is the youngest French National Team since 1997, the staff is new and for the moment they haven’t had to deal with a loss since the Olympics and are 9-0 since then. What’s going to happen when they face a real difficult team, I can’t answer. How will the team and the staff react when they are down by 5-points in money time in the Round of 16, we don’t know and that is a weakness.”

As for expectations, Ohnona feels that France may be caught due to their lack of experience, “That in itself can make the Round of 16 matchup with Group C a very dangerous game which could be against Greece, Spain, Bosnia, Georgia or Italy, you name it, it doesn’t really matter. France can beat any of those teams but they can also present a difficulty that they had not seen before. This game will be very, very tough.

“If France advances to the semifinal, then this would be a very good tournament. But there are so many players missing and you can always blame experience for that. So the quarters or the semifinals would be realistic. Of course, the players will say they want to medal or win it all but it’s too far ahead to thinking about that.”