A scent of the end of the year envelops the Metropolitans 92. Victor Wembanyama’s band is condemned to the feat in match number 3 of the French Championship finals against Monaco on Thursday in Paris to prolong their dream of coronation and the adventure of at least one game. The Roca Team, who lead the series 2-0, are only one victory away from a first national title and “Wemby” may be playing the last forty minutes of his life in the Elite on Thursday. All at Roland-Garros, the exceptional setting for the third (and possible fourth) match of the finals, played in the best of five matches.
“We were far from Monaco in the first (swept 87-64) but not so far in the second (lost 95-88)”, summarizes the director of sports operations Alain Weisz. “This time, the Monegasques will no longer be in the room where they have their bearings. There will be 15,000 spectators.” “The paradox is that the stadium is better known by them than by us,” smiles Wednesday coach Vincent Collet, whose team receives after two first matches in the Principality. The ASM indeed knows the places for having played against Paris Basketball a meeting of the fifth day of the regular season relocated on this same Philippe-Chatrier court where Thursday an atmosphere of end of adventure will float.
Great departures
Between the days stretching from mid-June, Roland-Garros in the background and the NBA draft as a baccalaureate, this third episode of the finals, and perhaps the last, looks like the last day of high school for young people. Met Victor Wembanyama (19 years old) but also Bilal Coulibaly (18 years old). “It’s special, agrees this last Wednesday. We try not to put it in our heads.” This final moment shared before dispersing for the two nuggets announced in very good place in the draft. But more generally for a large part of the team and even of the management.
Goodbye Professor Vincent Collet who will devote himself entirely to the French team in the thirteen months leading up to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. “I hope to have helped Victor to cross the Rubicon, he delivers. The year next, he will have other challenges, I hope that we will have helped to prepare him for it.” Ciao also the director of sports operations, Alain Weisz, himself a former coach of the Blues (2000-2003), who is retiring at 70. All in all, two players, Armel Traoré and Lahaou Konaté, remain under contract for the next fiscal year.
“They have so many strong players”
Only certainty, the sports hall Marcel-Cerdan, their cocoon of Levallois-Perret will be able to welcome them for another five years. The time that their future room of Boulogne-Billancourt, with the calendar delayed by the appeals, comes out of the ground. In the meantime, the Metropolitans 92 are not resigned to the time of farewell. “We talked to each other between players and we said to ourselves that it should not be our last match”, displays Bilal Coulibaly.
“We are young, we have this strength, recalled Vincent Collet on the evening of match number 2. We will give everything. I can’t tell you if it will be enough.” Because with each match, a different devil comes out of the Monegasque box. Lithuanian pivot Donatas Motiejunas impressed in the last match of the semi-finals against Bourg-en-Bresse (22 pts)? Others put the Mets in jeopardy in the Finals. “The characteristic of Monaco is that they do not always know who will be the providential man but there is always one, noted Vincent Collet on Monday. They have so many strong players. There it was Jordan Loyd (23 pts ), the other day, it was rather Elie Okobo. It is essential that we manage to stop one or two of them.”