Olympics, basketball: Italy draws France in the quarterfinals, on the pitch on Tuesday

From our correspondent Davide Chinellato

August 1
– Tokyo

Coach Sacchetti wanted Team Usa, for the fascination of NBA players. The urn, however, has chosen differently: France will be Italy’s opponent in the quarter-finals of the Olympics. The match is scheduled for Tuesday at 10.20 am Italian time. The other possible opponents of the Azzurri were Team USA and Luka Doncic’s Slovenia.

The opponent

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A game without too many expectations, France instead dominated group A, starting their adventure in Tokyo with the extraordinary victory over Team USA and then winning the other two games against the Czech Republic and Iran. Coach Vincent Collet built the team with an old school basketball, taking advantage of the centimeters under the basket of Rudy Gobert (best NBA defender in 3 of the last 4 seasons, 7.7 rebounds on average at the Games) and Vincent Poirier. The top scorer in the first round was Evan Fournier, a guard who ended 2020-21 with the Boston Celtics after 8 and a half years with the Orlando Magic and who averaged 17.3 points and 51.3% from the field. Also look out for Nic Batum, splendid handyman. The success on Team USA has relaunched France’s candidacy for a medal, including gold. “What we have done up to now does not count for anything, and it is the first thing I said to the players too – said coach Collet after the victory over Iran that closed the group -. Start a completely different tournament now, one where if you don’t win you go straight home. We will have to be ready ”.

The draw

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The match between France and Italy was the first of the draw held in the Saitama Super Arena press room immediately after the conclusion of Spain-Slovenia, the last match of the group stage. In addition to the quarterfinal pairings, the draw also established the scoreboard all the way to the gold medal. Whoever wins between France and Italy will find the winner of Slovenia-Germany in the semifinals. On the other side of the board the intersections are Team USA-Spain and Australia-Argentina. The draw provided that the three winners of the days (France, Australia and Slovenia) and the best second (USA) were placed in an urn and matched with the other two runners-up (Italy and Spain) and the two best thirds (Germany and Argentina) . The regulation forbade crossings in the quarterfinals between teams of the same group and provided that the best second could not draw one of the thirds. The semifinals are scheduled for Thursday, with time to be defined, the finals are for Saturday 7 August.

THE PROGRAM

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Here is the program of the quarter-finals, all scheduled for Tuesday, with Italian time. 3: Slovenia-Germany 6.40: USA-Spain 10.20: Italy-France 14: Australia-Argentina