Montpellier (AFP)
Four years after the European coronation of Sofia, the French volleyball players go to the reconquest of the continent, in front of their public of Montpellier, Nantes and Paris, to erase their failures in the last three international competitions, and regain confidence for the Olympic qualification.
"I think this European Championship is very important for all nations and they are really getting ready to make an outcome and use it as a launching pad for the Tokyo Olympics," said French coach Laurent Tillie.
Simple launching ramp and no machine to produce airline tickets for Japan. For as bizarre as it may seem, international volleyball tournaments -World every four years, Euro every two years, League of Nations every year- do not qualify any team for the queen competition, the Olympics.
For Tokyo, only three European teams have validated their ticket via a first series of qualifying tournaments in August and can evolve freed from this Olympic pressure: Poland, Russia and Italy.
For the recalted, the last chance to see Japan in July 2020 will be a continental tournament bringing together the eight best unskilled European ranking after the Euro and established over several years.
By the end of September, Earvin Ngapeth's team-mates will have to focus on one goal: to join Paris for the semi-finals and the final at Bercy, a legendary venue for French collective sports, which has seen so many handball triumphs. and handballers.
"For this team, it's the right moment," said Laurent Tillie, while France has not hosted international competition for 33 years and the World-1986. For the Euro, we must even go back to 1979!
"It has been built up as competitions, successes but also shots.Normally, it is ripe for this competition and in addition it is at home.It makes sense that all that the 'we made, the sacrifices of the last seven years,' insists the coach.
- Ngapeth spared on the beginning -
Over the last seven years, volleyball has indeed experienced great emotions, with an exceptional 2015: victory in the summer in the World League (ancestor of the League of Nations) in Brazil at one year of the 2016 Olympic Games, and especially first European title in Bulgaria in the autumn.
But since then, he has had the failures of the Rio Olympics in 2016, after a qualification obtained just a few weeks before the rendezvous under the Rings, the Euro-2017 and the World Cup-2018.
It is with these highs and lows in mind that the Blues appear Thursday in Montpellier, somewhat diminished by the injuries of Trévor Clevenot, but especially his star Earvin Ngapeth, touched ribs and spared for the first three matches group, at least.
In this first 24-nation European Championship, played in four different countries (France, Belgium, Slovenia, and the Netherlands), the Blues will fight for one of the first four places in their group, with Italy, the Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal and Romania, offering the ticket for Nantes, where the 8th and quarterfinals await them.
The Italians led by their overpowered waiter Ivan Zaytsev, their smuggler Simone Giannelli, or Osmany Juantorena, will be their main rivals, they could find in the quarterfinals.
Bulgaria, coached by Silvano Prandi, who is spending the season on Chaumont's bench, and with Tsvetan Sokolov in the lead, will not be easy to master.
In Olympic qualification at home in August, the Bulgarians came close to the exploit against Brazil, with three match points. A third place in the group could give the French a very complicated eighth final against Russia.
© 2019 AFP