Italy vs. France, tickets on sale

Aug. 12 Italy-France

After Luka Doncic’s Slovenia, Evan Fournier and Rudy Gobert’s France. The parade of stars continues for Gianmarco Pozzecco’s national team, which in order to better prepare for the World Cup qualifying games scheduled for August and especially September’s EuroBasket has chosen to face one of the best teams in the World: Silver Medalist France at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

The super challenge, organized for FIP by Master Group Sport, will be played on Friday, August 12 at 8:30 p.m. at the Unipol Arena in Bologna (Via Gino Cervi, 2 Casalecchio di Reno). Tickets for the match are on sale from today on the Vivaticket circuit.

First big date of the second part of the Azzurra summer. After the training camp in Pinzolo, the Italbasket is expected to play a match that to define only “friendly” is impossible given the great rivalry between the two teams and the many precedents. The last crossover is dated August 3, 2021, the day of the quarterfinal at last year’s Japanese Olympics. The French prevailed but Italy came close to accomplishing the feat, which only faded in the very last minutes. Overall, Italy and France have faced each other no less than 98 times in their history (with no opposing national team Italy has ever played more). Italy-France was also the first ever match for the Italian national basketball team, on April 4, 1926, in Milan.

For the occasion, transalpine coach Vincent Collet has summoned 17 top athletes, including five NBA players (Evan Fournier, Rudy Gobert, Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot, Théo Maledon and Frank Ntilikina) and the very young 2004 class starlet Victor Wembanyama. Making the French roster even more interesting is the presence of the “Bolognese” (Virtus side) Isaia Cordinier and Mouhammadou Jaiteh, who won the Eurocup with the V Nere this year.

The event is part of the program of sports events supported by the Emilia-Romagna Region for the enhancement of the territory and tourist attractiveness.