City of October 6 (Egypt) (AFP)

The French men's handball team qualified for the main round of the World Cup in Egypt by dominating Austria 35-28 on Saturday in Cairo, two days after a very convincing success against Norway (28-24).

Quickly done well done.

Arrived on tiptoe in Egypt after its elimination in the first round of Euro-2020, and two disappointing resumption matches against Serbia, the Blues have already taken the first step of their reconquest mission.

Attractive against Norway in what constituted the opening shock, they will have to beat Switzerland on Monday to approach the second round with the maximum number of points, those acquired against the other qualified teams being retained.

Faced with an opponent less feared than Sander Sagosen's Norway, and deprived in Egypt of his left-back Nikola Bilyk, injured in a knee, Michaël Guigou's team has mastered its subject and rotated its workforce.

So at the start, the rear base was almost renewed with Timothey N'Guessan out of the game sheet, Kentin Mahé and Luka Karabatic on the bench.

Romain Lagarde (left-back), Nicolas Tournat (pivot) and Adrien Dipanda (right-back) took advantage of this rotation to illustrate themselves, with Melvyn Richardson (center-half) in place of Dipanda in attack.

- Gérard in confidence -

In goals, Vincent Gérard, only entered on two 7m jets against Norway, quickly proved invaluable by making 11 saves in the first period (17 in total).

What put him in confidence after the exceptional performance of his partner and competitor Wesley Pardin (18 stops) two days earlier.

And not only defensively: the goalkeeper of the Blues, consolidated in his role of N.1 the day before by coach Guillaume Gille, offered himself 2 goals in the empty Austrian cage.

Austria held out for a few minutes (3-3) thanks to the hesitations of the French left side, but the French quickly accelerated (8-5), notably winning the numerical inferiority caused by the exclusion of Dika Mem (2 -1).

The gap has steadily increased in favor of the Blues, who nevertheless wasted some ammunition like the stops of Thomas Bauer on Michaël Guigou (12th), then Florian Kaiper on Luc Abalo just before the break or even the failure of Hugo Descat at the end of the match.

But general efficiency, like Ludovic Fabregas' 5 goals in his first 9 minutes - six in total, top French scorer - allowed the Blues to swell the gap up to eight goals ahead ( 30-22).

Twelve players have scored at least 2 goals and 6 have achieved a 100% faultless, including substitute Jean-Jacques Acquevillo, a last minute guest after Elohim Prandi's injury.

Bodes well for the future.

© 2021 AFP