22:50, September 14, between Berlin and Bourg-en-Bresse in 01. A shiver goes through my skin, but it’s not the cool outside temperature or the sensation of an orange sorbet too cold on the tooth the bottom. This thrill has a name, an Anglicism that gives its name to an incredible sport: basketball. And for a few days and even more today, this sport fascinates me more than ever, it transports me.
Dear EuroBasket 2022: I love you, madly, passionately
Everyone always finds a little happiness in front of their door, there is certainly no idea of comparing anything. Everyone his passions, everyone his idols. My passion ? Basketball. My idols? They come and go, and since 1 September many of them have crossed the streets between Tbilisi, Prague, Milan, Cologne and more recently Berlin, the holiday destination of the heroes of EuroBasket 2022.
HeroBasket 2022, which we could have called this competition, because this year some of the best dancers on the planet met in the Old Continent to climb its most beautiful steps, especially the highest. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic, for example, owners of NBA MVP trophies for four seasons already, or even Luka Doncic, who is rumored to collect these same trophies someday as his talent is unanimously recognized. These people fascinate me, their talent sometimes haunts me.
Source: FIBA
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Individuality therefore, but not only. Away from there. Because a EuroBasket, like any other international sports competition, are collective considerations, put at the service of your country. We forget which player we are a bit, or rather we try to skillfully mix it with the pressure of the event, with the desire of an entire country to exalt its team, its nation.
Where the hell am I going? You got there.
Simply the desire to say, to write, even to shout, that this sport is simply wonderful. Why this ? Because it allowed for fourteen days to confront dark continental players with NBA superstars, without the scenario being written in advance. Because during this EuroBasket 2022, it will not be those we expected most to reach the finish line, because during this EuroBasket I discovered Estonians and Dutch with unpronounceable names, because in this EuroBasket 2022 the strongest in basketball does not always win, especially when it is too much alone, especially if it is not ready.
Because in basketball a game is never over, not even when its winner seems to have already been decided less than ten seconds from the end of a game, right Rudy, right Thomas.
Because we feel more French than at any other time of the year, even if sometimes the make-up and songs of certain fans make us want to be Lithuanian.
Source: FIBA
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Because the ones we follow all year become other players, other people when they wear the national jersey. Because, for some of them, we just want to give them a big hug.
Why tonight Thomas Heurtel and Mateusz Ponitka, why Rudy Fernandez (yes) and Andreas Obst yesterday, why Terry Tarpey and Lauri Markkanen, why Cedi Osman and Simone Fontecchio.
Because EuroBasket 2022, shit, we might remind ourselves of that for a while.
Because all these guys, after all, remind me that the sport I care about so much for more than thirty years … is also and above all a story of men, a story of emotions, a happy compromise between desire and destiny, between the talent of some and the desire to conquer others.
Dear EuroBasket 2022: I love you, madly, passionately
Dramaturgy, suspense, joys, sorrows. Surprises, disappointments, revelations, even births. Since the start of EuroBasket 2022? The mix is incredible and brings me back to the very essence of what I once set out to write… every day.
Because I live this sport while I practice it, because I look at it as I feel it, because I talk about it as I sometimes hide. With passion, with love, with modesty but without shame, with a smile, sometimes with a few tears, in 2013 or 2015, even in 2020, some obviously know what I’m talking about.
At 6:40 pm the neighbor called, she just wanted to bring me a salad bowl, she said I looked drugged. I’ve never taken drugs, at least I think. Because if basketball is a drug, it will soon be time to consult. But a lot between us … do I really want to take care of myself?
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