Paris (AFP)

The French handball team faces Greece, in a double confrontation with a trip to Korydallos on Tuesday for the first leg (7:00 p.m.), then the return to Créteil on Sunday (6:00 p.m.), to validate their ticket for the next European Championship in January 2022.

It is a rather atypical format that awaits Guillaume Gille's players this week, for an international window wedged between two extremely dense and important periods for the clubs' end of season.

In a qualifying group for Euro-2022 which has gone from four to three teams after Belgium's general package due to the health crisis, the French must take one of the first two places.

A victory in Greece on Tuesday would open the doors to Hungary and Slovakia, where the 2022 European Championship will take place from January 13 to 30.

It might even be sufficient if Serbia succeeds in Greece two days later.

Otherwise, it will be necessary to ensure the blow Sunday in Créteil.

"This qualifying week comes a bit in the middle of nowhere, because the Olympic preparation is already looming. But it is essential because if we miss it, the France team will not be at Euro-2022 in January next, "warned coach Guillaume Gille.

"The pitfalls are numerous. It's a fairly new format, we find the players very late, we face a team against which we have very few benchmarks and references," he said.

The Blues will be deprived for these two meetings of the pivot of Paris, Luka Karabatic, and the two left-handers of Montpellier Yannis Lenne (wing) and Melvyn Richardson (back).

To compensate for these three packages, Paris right-winger Benoit Kounkoud and Rhein-Neckar right-back Löwen Romain Lagarde joined the group on Sunday.

The qualifying campaign got off to a bad start at the start of January for Gille's first matches at the head of the team, with a defeat in Serbia and a draw against the same Serbia a few days later in Créteil.

But since then, the French have returned to the hierarchy of the planet hand, with the end of January a semi-final of the World-2021 in Egypt (4th place), and especially a qualification for the Olympic Games in Tokyo (23 July-8 August ), acquired through a hard fight in mid-March in Montpellier and which left Croatia, vice-champion of Europe 2020, on the floor.

© 2021 AFP