MADRID (FIBA Basketball World Cup) - France and Serbia were not supposed to be in the Semi-Finals of the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup. Both teams had high hopes but were young and struggled in the Group Phase, finishing third and fourth respectively in Group A in Granada.

Yet, here they are, ready to face off on Friday at 22:00 local time (GMT+2) in Madrid's Palacio de los Deportes with the winners to return to the court on Sunday with a chance to be crowned world champions.

Many people will look back to the match-up between the two teams in Granada where France won 74-73 in what some consider a controversial ending. But neither team really wants to think about that game.

"You cannot compare this game to that one. Both teams are better. They improved, we improved," said France coach Vincent Collet, whose team picked up their play against Croatia in the Round of 16 and then pulled off one of the biggest upsets in FIBA history in knocking off hosts and title contenders Spain in the Quarter-Finals.

Collet's Serbian counterpart, Sasha Djordjevic, who has seen his team improve as well since the group stage to pick up an 18-point win over Greece in the Round of 16 and a 28-point thrashing of Brazil in the Quarters, said: "It will be a completely new game."

France and Serbia will be playing for the fourth time in their history with teams splitting the other two encounters before Spain 2014, France winning at the first group stage at 2011 EuroBasket and Serbia knocking off France in the second group stage of 2013 EuroBasket before the French went on to win the title.

Djordjevic refuses to see France as a team missing some of their top players like Tony Parker and Joakim Noah.

"They are the European champions, so we have to play our best to have a chance to win the game," said the Serbian coach.

"They showed that they can play without Tony Parker. And that they can really touch the stars."

The player-turned-coach said the strength of the Serbian team is the team idea.

"It's the group that has strength in being a group, trying to fight one for another."

Djordjevic believes a key will be how his team responds to the athleticism of the French.

Collet, meanwhile, said a main concern for him is his players thinking they have already accomplished something great and euphoria will set it.

"It could be a problem. That's my main concern. We have to make everybody understand to do it one time doesn't mean you will do it every time," he warned.

"The main concern for us is to be the same and be consistent and be serious and not dream."

Collet admitted he's concerned about Serbia's offensive weapons and wondered if his team can create enough offense.

"They have more tools than us. We have troubles scoring more than 70 points. They can score 90 points. We don't know if we can good on offense. We know we can be good on defense, but we don’t know if we can be good on offense. We'll see."

One of the keys could be the third quarter as Serbia have come out of the locker room a changed team, having scored the most points in that quarter in five of their seven games in Spain.

France withstood Spain's best punch in the third in the Quarters and may need to do so again to reach the final - where neither team was really supposed to be according to prognosticators. 

FIBA