France’s impressive bronze medal at the European Championship has us eager to discuss it with the Federation’s Technical Director, who oversees the French national teams. Meet Stephen Lesfargues:
BTVF: What was the goal for this European Cup?
S.L.: The goal for our French national team was to win gold at the European Championship. To be honest with you, the semifinal against the future European champions left a bit of a bitter taste. Unfortunately, baseball isn’t an exact science, and there’s only one champion at the end. We then did our job to secure this bronze medal.
BTVF: How was the team recruitment process?
S.L.: Regarding the team, a few players were left out of the final roster due to injury, or in some cases, unavailability, like Mathias Lacombe. However, we were able to put together a strong French national team with Quentin Moulin returning to the pitching staff earlier than expected.
When you choose the right people, you can build a strong team with minimal preparation time before the competition, which is what manager Keino Perez did in this case.
It’s important for us to know that we can count on this generation and the next for upcoming international competitions and make them shine.
BTVF: What do you hope for with these young players regarding their mental approach?
S.L.: I also like the idea of working with our young players and integrating new ones to pass on this winning culture. I like the idea of working with our young national teams in baseball, softball, and baseball5 to create this winning attitude and chemistry with any French national team jersey. The combination of talent, attitude, playing hard with a lot of intensity, and being receptive to the staff is very important for the identity of our national teams. Playing hard means always playing as if it were your last match with the national team. You should never look in the mirror, see yourself as too good, and then think, « if only I had done that. »
We must continue our efforts to have every chance on our side every time we step on the field. Playing as a team, for each other, thinking about yourself but especially about the collective, which is more important than anything else, seizing opportunities as a player, and giving yourself the maximum chance to be ready physically and mentally, always in the service of performance.
BTVF: How do you envision the future?
S.L.: Our guys are good at batting, pitching, and on the field, we have speed, but there’s still room for improvement in the coming years, which is the positive side of things. We can move forward for several years. Among the players, we now have many who have already gained international experience in youth and senior national selections and in American colleges/universities.
The 20 members of the French national team are almost all currently in the French Division 1 championship, which was suspended for two weeks. I take this opportunity to thank the federation via the federal sports commission and the Presidents/Presidentes of the clubs for agreeing to the stoppage of the championship for the general interest of our U23 French Baseball national team.
BTVF: Can you talk to us about the JFL (Locally Trained Youth) in the Division 1 championship?
S.L.: At the DTN, we continue to work hard for the introduction of JFL starting next year with a number of innings imposed for JFL pitchers. With the transition of D1 from 10 to 8, we are in favor of playing on Saturdays and Sundays or 2×7 innings on Sunday. It is very difficult for a player to be concentrated for 2×9 innings in one day with a quality performance. We will need to evolve on this subject, as this year with the transition from 9 to 7 innings for the France Challenge matches. These are decisions to be made that seem to us to be going in the right direction for the national teams.
BTVF: In the end, after this U23 European Cup, what do you take away?
S.L.: We know and we understand that the performance of this U23 Baseball team is not due to chance. It is rather the result of continuous and repeated efforts from our players, clubs, high-level coaches, club coaches, and thus finds its culmination and reward today.
We came for the gold medal but we are happy to end the week with the bronze medal. We all know the value of a medal in our federation.
We will continue this winning culture to come back stronger next time with our blue jersey and return in front of all the federation’s licensees with other trophies.
Photo credits: WBSC Europe
