Despite going through additional qualifying rounds to secure a last minute spot at the 2009 FIBA Eurobasket, the French team is expected to be one of the teams contending for the title. Thus, the next obstacle for the team around NBA All-Star Tony Parker will be to make it through the qualifying round robin stage in Group E. On Tuesday at 4:15 p.m. GMT France will take on Greece in their final group game hoping to advance to the quarterfinals.

While there are still many question marks surrounding the French team, head coach Vincent Collet is confident that his squad will continue to improve as the tournament goes on. More specifically, France struggled in their friendly and qualification games despite featuring a roster any coach would dream of. In the first round-robin stage France managed to win all of their games but still had significant problems beating teams with a lot less talent. In fact, they were trailing in their games versus Germany, Russia and Latvia until late in the fourth quarter. However, with All-Star Tony Parker being surrounded by solid NBA players most experts expected more in the next round than what the French have been able to pull off thus far.

In contrast, Greece has been a consistent force in international basketball due to their outstanding teamplay and lack of selfishness. Even though the Greek team is competing at this year’s Eurobasket without their stars Thodoros Papaloukas and Dimitris Diamantidis, they have dominated all of their opponents thus far.

Considering the aforementioned circumstances it looks like neither team has a clear edge in this exciting match-up. While Greece can be expected to showcase great team-basketball, the French are counting on Tony Parker to carry their squad to a win. Moreover, France has been the most dominant team on the boards with their big men Ronny Turiaf from the Golden State Warriors and Nicolas Batum from the Portland Trailblazers. Even though any prediction seems to be pure speculation it is a safe bet that the audience will get to see an exciting, highly contested ball game

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