The coach of the French basketball team Vincent Collet on Friday called four new players for the February international window, the only one before the announcement of the list for the Olympics, including the hopefuls Zaccharie Risacher and Nadir Hifi, but not Nando De Colo nor Elie Okobo.

De Colo, one of the Blues executives, is currently injured, while Okobo had a disappointing 2023 World Cup, like most of the Blues eliminated in the first round at the end of August in Indonesia while they were aiming for the title.

In the leader-back positions, one of the main projects for the French team in view of the Games, Collet selected rather than De Colo and Okobo the veteran Andrew Albicy, not selected for the World Cup, Sylvain Francisco and two neophytes from 21 years old: Hifi (21 years old), author of a good season with Paris, and Matthew Strazel, who is taking up more and more space in the Monaco rotation.

While he could, following an agreement between the Euroleague and Fiba (International Federation), select Euroleague players for this Euro-2025 qualification window, Collet did not call Rodrigue Beaubois (Efes Istanbul), according to the press release published by the French Federation.

The 35-year-old leader declared himself “up” for the Paris Olympics after having notably refused to participate in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo for family reasons.

Besides Hifi and Strazel, the two other players called up without any selection are the 18-year-old winger Zaccharie Risacher (Bourg-en-Bresse), announced in the first positions of the 2024 NBA draft, and the 24-year-old power forward years Jaylen Hoard (Hapoel Tel-Aviv).

Also note the recall, in this orphan list of all players playing in the NBA, to the winger position of Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot (Asvel), and the absences of Terry Tarpey and Yakuba Ouattara, as well as pivot Moustapha Fall. In the racket, Vincent Poirier also makes his return.

The French team will play its first two qualifying matches for Euro-2025 against Croatia on February 23 in Brest then against Bosnia-Herzegovina at home three days later.

The group of 13 players selected: Albicy, Cordinier, Francisco, Hifi, Hoard, Inglis, Lacombe, Lessort, Luwawu-Cabarrot, Poirier, Risacher, Strazel, Yabusele

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