U12: The Glass Ceiling

The truth comes from the bats of the kids. And it’s not always pleasant to hear. The France 12U team has once again failed in their mission to qualify for the top-4. The heatwave alert also prevented the ranking of the bottom teams by canceling the classification matches, thus ensuring there were no relegations. This will allow France to be among the 10 teams in the next European Cup.

Like other age categories, French baseball is hitting a glass ceiling at the European semifinals.

And when you see that it was Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and the Czech Republic that made up the top tier of this European championship excellently organized in Évry, you understand that the famous ceiling is no longer made of glass, but of tempered steel, and that it will be increasingly difficult to break through.

We’re certainly not going to blame the coaching staff, who gave it their all, and the players, who are only the result of training and support that are clearly insufficient. We can’t produce good players in France, and we always end up at the crossroads of development and training, which can’t seem to take off. There’s an issue with coaches, level of play, and competitiveness in the younger categories, which logically affects the other age groups.

To try to better understand what’s going on, we looked at the France 12U team from 2015, which finished 3rd in the European Championship. Well, it was a second-rate European Championship, as France had beaten Austria, Romania, Belarus, and Poland and lost only to the two worthy opponents, Russia and the Czech Republic. But that’s not the point, and a bronze medal is still a bronze medal. What interested us was seeing, 10 years later, in the France U23 team that finished 5th in the European Championships, how many players were still there. There were only three: Mathis Meurant, Tanguy Meurant, and Louis Brainville. So, in order, a very high-level player, another we haven’t heard much about this year, and a very solid D1 player. That’s not much. To go further, among the 2015 U12s, few have played in D1. Talheb, Khemache, Bidault, Chauveau, played a handful of matches, Launay and Hassed a bit more, and 9 didn’t make it past that level. The attrition is significant. Too significant. We don’t know how to develop talent, and when we have it, we don’t know how to keep it.

This isn’t an easy subject. Adolescence is a complicated age, and there are many temptations outside of baseball, which isn’t an easy sport. On this topic, listen to Dany Scalabrini. The former player for the Québec Capitales and Rouen Huskies was interviewed by Canadian TVA, on the occasion of a tournament in Québec attended by a Rouen delegation of 13U, including his son Elyas: “Baseball in France isn’t very evolved yet, so for those who start at 7-8 years old, it doesn’t move fast enough. That’s why he also plays tennis and handball alongside baseball,” said Scalabrini, who really knows what he’s talking about. What he says is very revealing and highlights all the complexity of this unique sport that demands a lot of passion and patience. We certainly need to ask ourselves how to keep the young players, which probably involves playing time, competition, and motivation. It’s a tough and complex project that requires a lot of attention.

But we can also see the positive. After all, if the France U23 team is almost entirely different from the France U12 team from ten years ago, it’s because we’ve managed to train other players and help them rise to the top level. And so there has been a renewal over the past 10 years, progress has been made. After all, this generation could well be the golden generation of French baseball in the coming years. They have the means on paper. We’ll talk about it again in ten years?

F. Colombier

Photo credit: WBSC Europe, Glenn Gervot