Dika Mem and the Blues remain on a sad elimination from the preliminary round of the last Euro in Norway.
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AFP
The Handball World Cup will be held in Egypt from January 13 to 31, 2021.
The France team faces Norway for their first match in the competition.
The Blues, in full doldrums after the pitiful elimination from the preliminary round of the last Euro, must rebuild themselves with the new coach Guillaume Gille.
We could pinch ourselves to make our skin redden in front of our TV, nothing to do, it is indeed the French handball team which went down in early January in Serbia as part of the qualifications at Euro 2022, for the first of Guillaume Gille as coach.
But after a year without playing - even though this team had already recovered during the European Championships in Norway in early 2020 - we could still put this on the health context and the lack of shared experience.
The problem is that the Blues did not go far from a second affront in a row, still against the same Serbs, Saturday during round 2 in Créteil.
On arrival, a narrowly snatched draw that avoids the disaster, but not enough to jump to the ceiling.
All on the eve of the start of the World Cup in Egypt which begins with a France-Norway Wednesday, we experienced a more pleasant context around the Blues ...
“I expected much better from the French, I even saw them win quite easily but that was not at all the case, breathes François-Xavier Houlet, former international now commentator for beIN Sports.
They were stammering.
There were no revolts and in the game I didn't see much better compared to the first match in Serbia.
However, it would have been interesting to go to Egypt with some certainties ... Perhaps the staff will still find reasons for satisfaction or hope, but for us, from the outside, it was not easy to see a lot.
"Then returns to us this sentence of Valentin Porte after the inaugural defeat against Portugal a year ago:" It's a fundamental problem (...) We are clearly no longer afraid and everyone plays the France team in saying “we can beat them” ”.
A team losing its bearings and lacking confidence
Accustomed by their glorious past to stick the tags to their opponents at the mere mention of the words "French handball team", the Blues seem today to have totally lost their modjo.
To the point of putting their “Experts” label in the closet?
If he does not (yet) go that far, the former left-back Jérôme Fernandez validates the observation: "It's true, we no longer frighten, not even the nations which are not part of the European elite. or global.
"Today, anyone will play the France team, telling themselves that they have a chance, which was not the case in the past", supports Houlet.
Asked about this at the end of December, the new coach Guillaume Gille did not try to hide the misery: “We were eliminated in the preliminary round of a major international competition, so in this capacity, of course we were in below all of our standards and that we have sinned in many areas.
But today, to tell you where we stand when we had zero regrouping before November and zero official matches… There is still a need for work, we need to calibrate.
“That was before the two mediocre trendy average matches against the Serbs…
“I continue to be convinced that all the opponents of the France team start the matches against it with maximum respect, tempers the former international (and brother of the new coach) Bertrand Gille.
For me this is a false debate.
The question is: what is the level of trust that we have between teammates?
When there is confidence in a group, the performance is no longer very far, whether individual or collective.
But it is true that we feel that it is complicated at the moment on these themes.
"
VIDEO.
Unaccustomed to crises, the French hand federation in full drama https://t.co/sOTEhZp0md
- 20 Minutes (@ 20Minutes) January 28, 2020
The reasons are many: a transfer of power between Didier Dinart and Claude Onesta which had nothing to envy to that underway at the White House between Trump and Biden, fresh relations not to say icy between the former coach and some executives in Norway, the retreat of the locker room mastodons.
Add to this the internal drudgery of the federation (exacerbated by the elections of the new president), the episode of Onesta's dedication to Dinart, the new change of coach and a small global pandemic and you have a fairly complete picture of the bazaar. which has been heckling the house of France for over a year.
In praise of patience
But once we say that what do we do?
"The best way is to arrive on tiptoe, with a lot of humility," poses Valentin Porte.
Let's not set a goal, let's prepare this first round as we need to by taking the matches one after the other.
" The tone is set !
Basically, for Gille's real first experience as a head coach with a team with a total loss of benchmarks and confidence, could the French sell us anything else?
No, a priori.
For now, the Blues have no other choice but to be as pragmatic as possible, even if it means initially missing a bit of ambition.
Even if time, the former center-half will not have plenty either.
"If we played basketball, people would have adequate patience, but we play hand ...", regrets the brother, now sports director of the Chambéry club.
Yet this is what we will have to learn.
Jérôme Fernandez: “Let's try to be patient.
We have players who are not at 100% psychologically and physically and who find it difficult to shine.
It is a team in reconstruction, with a majority of players who have little experience together and very few senior executives in international games.
This team needs a technician who puts a game plan in place with players who can contribute today but, above all, will contribute tomorrow.
I knew that well: when my generation passed behind the Barjots, it took several seasons for us to feel legitimate and to seek results.
This team today needs to build its own history.
"
“The most important thing is not to know if we can finish in the top 4 at the World Cup but rather to know where we are going in the medium and long term.
Nobody is going to want this team not to finish in the last four if what they showed was encouraging.
But there has to be a meaning to all this, ”agrees François-Xavier Houlet.
This is precisely what Guillaume Gille and his staff are working on, not without finding reasons for hope.
"I found a group that wanted to meet again, it materialized through a lot of exchanges, pleasure in relaunching a new project, a lot of commitment, a lot of contributions, the energy is positive, he explained.
What is certain is that our desire is not to stay in these spheres.
The France team remains a team that must be ambitious because it has talent, but it must also work a lot to find a place more in line with its history and its record.
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