The France-Ukraine meeting will take place on Sunday (November 27th) in Roanne. The fight begins at 18:00 Kyiv time. The match will be broadcast live on Xsport TV channel.

Last Thursday, the Ukraine women’s team’s chances of qualifying for the final of the continental championship turned from very good to mediocre. A massive defeat against Lithuania equated to a brilliant victory at home against the strongest French team. Now the Blue-Yellows need to raise their standings, but it will be very difficult to do. French women will certainly make every effort to pay the price for the sensational defeat in Kiev a year ago.

The French women’s team has long been one of the strongest in Europe. At the last Olympics in Tokyo, the French took third place (best result among European teams). In addition, the competitor of the Ukrainian national team has consistently been among the winners of seven consecutive continental championships, and in the last five, France has consistently won silver medals.

Unlike our team, which has not played in official competitions for over a year, France participated less than two months ago at the World Championship in Australia, which it won directly with its successful performance in the last European Championship. On the Green Continent, the “tricolors” did not perform very well, but they did not fail either. In the group stage, the French women had three wins and two losses, which was the fourth to last, and they lost to the Chinese in the quarterfinal stage without any options, and eventually became the silver medalist – 71: 85.

It is worth noting that such an outcome can be associated with the beginning of a generational change in the French team. Head coach Jean-Aimé Toupan has not yet completely abandoned the services of the golden belt (or rather, the silver French belt), but he is already actively introducing many new and young basketball players to his vision of the game.

Three days ago, as expected, the French team, renewed in the third round of the 2023 European Championship qualifiers, left no stone unturned from Finland, which was excluded from our group. At Saint-Etienne, the tricolors won with a score of 103:77. Back line basketball players Marin Joanne (16 points) and Mamiga Touré (15 points) were the most prolific among French women.

Our team is going through a tough test today. If the match played in Lithuania three days ago had ended with the victory of the blue-yellows, the defeat in today’s match would not have affected the standings of Srdjan Radulovic’s team too much. And now the Ukrainians have to gnaw away the victory of one of the best teams in Europe. If all does not go according to plan, it is worth fighting for at least an acceptable final difference, which may be useful in the end of the election. Overall it will be very difficult, but after a negative sensation, we expect pleasant surprises from our team in the opposite direction.

Sport.ua forecast: French team won

Sport.ua will broadcast an online text stream of the France v Ukraine match.

27 November

France – Ukraine

Finland – Lithuania