FRA - Yacoubou tells it like it is for women’s NT

PARIS (Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Women) - There's more to a women's national team like France than meets the eye.

That is readily apparent when center Isabelle Yacoubou, a member of the gold-medal winning team at EuroBasket Women 2009 in Latvia and this year’s bronze-medal winning squad at the same event in Poland, begins to talk about her experience with Les Bleues.

The naturalized player from Benin, it turns out, was not the happiest of players in the national team set-up before this summer.

"With the (France) coach (Pierre Vincent), I didn't really have such a good feeling," Yacoubou said.

"So this year, I really talked to him and said, 'If you don't need me, don't call me'.

"So, he was like, 'Okay.' And he made me feel more confident with my basketball.

"I told him, 'I'm here to improve. I want to work, so if you don't feel like you can help me, just tell me and I will go away.'

"So he said, 'Come and we'll work on it.'

"We began to talk (and understand each other) better."

Yacoubou's first EuroBasket Women was in 2007 in Chieti.

At the 2009 event in Latvia, she averaged just over 11 minutes per game.

After missing the 2010 FIBA World Championship for Women, and giving serious thought to skipping the EuroBasket in Poland before talking to Vincent, Yacoubou played and averaged nearly 15 minutes per contest.

In the bronze-medal game triumph over the Czech Republic, she played 30 minutes.

Yacoubou admits she was nervous before speaking to Vincent.

"I decided to speak to him and said, 'Come on. We're not young anymore. We're grown up. We should speak as adults' and it was good.

"But I think he was surprised.

"It's my character, though. I cannot keep things inside because anyway, he would find out. I would speak to my agent, and the coach would know anyway.

"In the end, he did see that I was growing up and it's always good for a coach to see that."

It was very important for Vincent to have Yacoubou this summer, even more so when Emmeline Ndongue went down with a serious injury in the second round.

France ultimately met their primary aim of reaching the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament for Women by winning in the Quarter-Finals.

Unlike the World Championship in the Czech Republic when France lost in overtime to Spain the Quarter-Finals, the French won their last-eight clash and then managed to bounce back from a Semi-Final setback to Turkey to beat the Czech Republic and climb onto the podium.

It helped Vincent that not only Yacoubou and Sandrine Gruda were back, but also Edwige Lawson.

The veteran playmaker hadn't been in the team since the EuroBasket Women 2007 in Chieti, when France came in a disappointing eighth and did not reach the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

Yacoubou was honest with Vincent, and she wants to be open and direct with the French people, too.

When asked about her team’s chances of not only reaching the London Games, but doing well, she said to FIBA.com: “No one will tell you that you are a good player. They will say, ‘Oh, you’re okay, but …'

“But I have to say we have the potential. We are good. We have good players and if everyone can believe this, we can be really strong.”

Yacoubou says, in fact, that it’s time to stop thinking about how good France can be, and instead expect them to be good - right now.

“I’m sorry, but I’m 25 years old and started playing basketball seven years ago. I’m playing with some of the best players in the world (at Ros Casares) like Lauren Jackson, Ann Wauters, Sancho Lyttle, so now, if no one is going to tell me, I’ll tell myself – ‘I’m good.’ And I really try to believe that.

“If we have this philosophy in France, I know we can do it.”

Jeff Taylor
FIBA