If the covid which affects the ranks of Limoges does not do too much in the coming hours, the Limoges CSP will face the leader of the Boulogne-Levallois championship this Sunday from 6 p.m. in Beaublanc. Before this meeting of the 23rd day of the French Elite basketball championship, the former coach and selector of the French team Alain Weisz, now general manager of the Metropolitans, answered our questions.
Alain Weisz, did you expect to be first in the standings at this time of the season?
No, it would be pretentious to say that. We had set ourselves the goal this season of succeeding in being in the Top 5. We never talked about being first in the championship at that time of the season. Now, the appetite comes with eating and we are going to do everything, when two thirds of the season have passed, to try to stay first. But ASVEL and Monaco have not said their last word. We know that this 1st place is important for the play-offs.
It’s very difficult to remotivate yourself every time
A first place which wavered a little in February with three defeats in the league. Can we say that it is better?
Yes, but there are a lot of paradoxes in this championship. We were able to lose against Paris, against Roanne and Le Portel who are not top teams. And we were able to beat Monaco and ASVEL twice. It depends a lot on the fatigue of the European Cup and especially on the motivation. It’s very difficult to re-motivate yourself every time. The coach may say to be careful and that they have qualities, which is true, the players concentrate a lot according to the classification. Which is nonsense because it never happens like that.
It’s a team that is extremely serious
After losing on the Partizan Belgrade floor in the Eurocup on Wednesday, you go to Beaublanc on Sunday to face Limoges who are 9th. How do you see this meeting?
Frankly, the players are very focused on this match. They know the danger. They know very well that Limoges has progressed. It is a team which today is very difficult to play and even more so at Beaublanc. It’s a team that is extremely serious. In 1 the defense, in 2 the attack as the Americans say. It is the hallmark of serious and important coaches to do this and to get there because sometimes we have players who are not great defenders and we have to get them to defend anyway. It gets there. I think it’s just a good team. What is funny for us is that we played in Belgrade on Wednesday a little bit in the temple of European basketball and now we are going to play in Beaublanc in the temple of French basketball! It was good training. Today, the CSP is formidable. I don’t worry about motivation. Afterwards, you have to be able on the ground to be up to it and to oppose the same desire as that which the CSP will offer us. That’s a certainty. You have to be able to respond, resist and then try to impose yourself. It’s one of the things we want to do. Whether we will get there or not is another matter. But in any case, we want to do it.
The answer will be political
The Metropolitans have a hall project in Boulogne-Billancourt. Where are you ? Covid didn’t help?
No, the pandemic did not play. It’s quite simply that there are a lot of resources on the Place de Boulogne. The sports hall must be done in the city center where there are many residents and some are very familiar with the law and how to delay works such as a sports hall. The mayor of Boulogne did not expect it to take so long. I read in the newspapers that we were going to move (laughs). It’s one of the possibilities but it’s absolutely not done yet. For now, it’s still Boulogne-Levallois. A club run on the Levallois side by politicians and on the Boulogne side by politicians. So the answer will be political!
I need young people to take my place
And you in the middle of all this, is this really your last year before retirement?
Frankly, the administrative aspects, I see that with an amused eye because I am a basketball man, on the field. All that stuff, I find ridiculous. My return as a leader was really in relation to a more than ten-year friendship with the mayor of Boulogne (Pierre-Christophe Baguet). I told him that now he must leave me alone. He tells me that if we move, they will need me because there will be a lot of things to think about. Frankly I don’t know because I have time and this year is a year that remotivates. And being with coach Vincent Collet, with whom I am very close, adds appeal to the season. But frankly, I’ve spent my life on a basketball court. I say it sincerely, young people have to take my place.