The French women's handball team finishes its preparation before the Euro on a false note in Norway. They lost 23-21, in Oslo, against strong Norwegians. Not enough to sound the alarm since they had won their two previous meetings.
French handballers received a four-day free warning from the start of the Euro, bowing to Norway, two-time defending champion, 23-21, in the final warm-up match on Sunday in Oslo.
It is obviously not necessary to overinterpret the results of this Golden League where the Blues finished their break-in. Coach Olivier Krumbholz has turned his squad as his Scandinavian counterpart. If the two teams meet at the Euro, like last year in the final of the World Cup, the public will be on the side of the Blue (it will not be before the semi-finals in Paris).
But the champions of the world still showed deficiencies in attack that they will absolutely have to fill if they want to start their tournament by a victory over Russia, Olympic champion, Thursday in Nancy.
Although Grace Zaadi or Allison Pineau showed some nice things intermittently, the French had a lot of shooting failures and lost too many balls, as in their first two games against Denmark (22-20) and Hungary (19-18).
The Norwegians, already star-studded Nora Mörk for the Euro, may have lost another major player, back Amanda Kurtovic, who came off the ground in tears in the second half after knee injury.
After this hard blow, the Blues reduced the gap that had reached six units.