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Joel Embiid will embrace the villain role when he lines up for the United States against France in the Olympic basketball gold medal match in Paris tonight.
Born in Cameroon, the NBA star chose to represent the USA over France at the Olympics and he has been loudly booed by the French fans during the tournament so far.
Embiid has responded to the boos, taking on the crowd and telling them to “suck it” after the USA defeated Serbia in the semi-finals on Thursday, but the reaction is set to go up another level when he takes on France.
The Philadelphia 76ers star received French citizenship in 2022 in a move that seemed to confirm that he would play for the Olympic hosts at the Olympics.
But Embiid was convinced to represent the USA, where he has lived since he was 16, following encouragement from the star-studded roster that includes LeBron James and Kevin Durant.
Embiid was granted US citizenship in 2023 and the 30-year-old has said he does not understand why he had been criticised for his decision. The USA are bidding to win a fifth consecutive gold medal against France.
Frankly, I don’t understand why I’ve gotten a lot of criticism from the crowd," he said. "They’re going to boo me. I’m going to go back at them and tell them to ‘suck it.’ And so it’s going to be fun.
"Having lived half of my life in the US. and the other half in my country, Cameroon, it just looked like it was, you could go two ways.
"I said, from the beginning, and everybody knew that if Cameroon would’ve qualified, that would’ve never been a choice.
“Having the family [in America] and having built a lot of things and having accomplished a lot of things in the US and then knowing the group of guys deeply, it just made it easy."
Embiid said other people wanted to turn his decision into a “storyline” ahead of the Olympics but his showdown with the French crowd is set to be a major plot point ahead of the gold medal match.
“To me it’s whatever it takes to win to gold,” he said. “So that’s what I’m focused on. It’s all about Team USA against France."
