Paris (AFP)

Fourteen months for a double challenge: despite the postponement of the Olympic Games to the summer of 2021, Laurent Tillie did not want to give up anything and will lead the Blues to Tokyo while wearing the new club coach cap in Osaka, in Japan.

Initially, he wanted to stop, step back after the Olympic tournament in Tokyo, supposed to end on August 8. Then there was a proposal from Osaka, national champion 2018 and 2019. And the Covid-19 pandemic that turned the world sports calendar upside down, leading to the postponement of the JO-2020, now scheduled for July 23 to August 8, 2021.

In the space of a few weeks, the 2020/21 agenda of Laurent Tillie, coach of the France volleyball team since August 2012, has filled up considerably when he thought he was going on a sabbatical year.

"It's something I never thought of doing, because it's such a closed culture," said the technician, still surprised to see this "hermetic side" of Japan opening up to him.

This thing, it is the opportunity which was offered to him to discover Japanese volleyball and to train until the summer of 2024 the Panasonic Panthers of Osaka, where evolves in particular the double world champion (2014, 2018) Polish Michal Kubiak.

During his playing career in the 1980s and 1990s, there were few volleyball players who tried their luck in Japan - the French coach quotes the Canadians Paul Gratton and Gino Brousseau -, a country which nevertheless "revolutionized volleyball".

"It was the Japanese who invented the technique, they invented the cuff, the much lighter Mikaza-style ball, floating service, quick play, combinations", enthuses the former international, selected for both first Olympic campaigns (1988 and 1992) for French volleyball players.

So when he has the opportunity to go to this "other planet", he accepts. "It's a really fascinating culture. The way of writing, eating, talking, behaving. It's really another life and it seemed interesting to me to live", explains Tillie, also attracted by "the culture technique "and" perfect gesture "in Japanese volleyball.

- 15 months without the Blues -

If the language barrier promises to be a major obstacle, it is another aspect of Japanese life that the coach of the 2015 European champions most feared: organization.

"The programming in the details is essential. You have to plan everything three weeks in advance and it will be a real challenge for me," he slides with a smile.

With a Japanese championship which resumes in mid-October, but also an Asian Cup of champion clubs planned for the end of August, Laurent Tillie plans to set up in Japan in July. "I will try to anticipate my arrival, to integrate myself well."

Especially with the France team, while its lease was extended until the end of the Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021, the horizon is oddly clear of any competition until the Ligue des nations in May 2021. An unusual 17-month hole as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Laurent Tillie has already experienced this situation of club coach and coach, during the 2016/17 season after Rio-2016, when he was in charge of the RC Cannes girls. "There, it's because we have the coronavirus that turned everything upside down. It was not planned like that. But we want to end the adventure and what we have undertaken, so we have to 'adapt', he stresses.

He will be able to move less to see his players, but the video will allow him to continue to follow them. And he can rest on his staff, present in France or Italy. The reunion is planned for the League of Nations 2021, not before.

"The advantage of leaving a free summer is to allow clubs not to be bothered by the international break, they can start their preparation when they want," he said, giving an appointment to his troops. in May 2021 for two and a half months of preparation for the Games.

© 2020 AFP