Paris (AFP)

Less than a week after their return from the 2021 World Cup in Egypt, handball players resume club competitions on Thursday at a hectic pace, which will force some players to play up to four matches in six days.

"It is simply insane. We will have to take stock of injuries at the end of the season," said Vincent Gérard, goalkeeper of Paris SG and president of the Association of professional handball players.

The French internationals played eleven matches in January with the selection and leave in February at a comparable pace in clubs.

"We wonder where we are going, and in what state we will end up," he adds.

The next 28 days will be particularly dense for the clubs involved in the European Cups, between the matches of the Championship and the Champions League or European League: eight for Nîmes and Toulouse, nine for Paris SG and Montpellier and ten for Nantes, which resumes Thursday at home against the Slovenes of Celje in C1.

- Health concerns -

And sometimes, sequences of several meetings in a very short time: Montpellier will play twice in 24 hours in Moscow (9 and 10), PSG will play three matches (including two trips) in six days at the end of February (from 23 to 28) , and Nantes will have to go on the field four times in six days (between the 21st and the 26th).

Concerns for the health of players are shared by Michaël Guigou.

"We must stop doing anything if we want that there are not too many guys who fart, and unfortunately this has been the case since the start of the season", regretted after the World Cup captain of the France team, on track with Nîmes on Friday in the Starligue at Chartres.

"It's an economically complicated year, everyone is aware of it. But at one point, you don't have to do anything, everyone has to be reasonable," added the mixed zone winger at the Cairo, after the match for third place lost to Spain.

These infernal rates had been denounced almost two years ago by the greatest handball players, in the campaign "Don't play the players", "Do not play with the health of the players".

With the Covid-19 pandemic, many clubs (French and European) have been affected, forcing cascading postponements and creating a traffic jam of matches to be rescheduled.

- Unprecedented intensity -

"The pace is intensifying, we have to squeeze the matches somewhere. This intensity in two months has never happened to me," said Gérard, who will have until Saturday to prepare to resume in Hungary, in Szeged, in the Champions League.

"From the start, we knew that we had to show flexibility, adaptability and flexibility for the players, in order to be able to carry out the competitions to the maximum. The players showed a great sense of responsibility", Gérard notes, aware of being in a "very special" period.

"We are in an extraordinary and delicate period. We are doing things that we do not usually do, but we have to accept it," said Patrice Canayer, Montpellier coach.

"We are so lucky to do our job, when so many people cannot work, that we would be grudging to complain", adds the Montpellier technician.

"We are lucky, and we are aware of it, to be able to practice our sport", agrees with Vincent Gérard.

"But at what price and under what condition", he wonders.

© 2021 AFP