New coach Guillaume Gille at a press conference after the draw against Serbia on January 9, 2021. -
ALAIN JOCARD / AFP
The French handball team begins Thursday evening, against Norway, its Egyptian World Cup.
Guillaume Gille replaced Didier Dinart as manager after elimination in the preliminary round of Euro 2020 last January.
After a particular year marked by the global pandemic, the former international was not really able to work with his group in 2020.
There is in the world of French handball a very simple law, never contradicted, and which could be summed up as follows: any change of coach at the head of the France team can only be done in pain and noise. .
No need to search, you will not find a counterexample to this in modern times (ie since the hand is of little interest to the general public).
Whether it was between Daniel Constantini and Claude Onesta in 2001 or between Claude Onesta and Didier Dinart in 2016, the last two handovers were not without difficulties.
To the point that Constantini himself wondered in our columns if there was not "a curse of the transmission of the French hand".
Last year, Guillaume Gille was no exception to the rule.
Called in to replace a Dinart who broke with his group after the Norwegian fiasco - in which he himself participated as an assistant - the former center-half was entitled to his little kiss of death as a welcome.
Long walled in silence after his ouster, Dinart finally granted an interview to L'Equipe last June in which he did not forget his former teammate.
“He was my assistant.
As such, he could have been more united.
Afterwards, the values in life and their applications are specific to each person.
Me, I would not have been able to take the place of a head coach in this way, ”he admits.
A lack of experience that questions
“I leave him free to speak.
I don't need to justify who I am or what I do, ”Guillaume Gille replied laconically a few days later.
If the former n ° 2 did not wish to aggravate the situation, it is because he has other things to do.
He has just been given the task of regenerating a group in loss of identity and confidence and to qualify the Blues for the Tokyo Olympics, while at the same time linking his future in this position to the success or not of this objective.
Lack of pot (or luck, it depends), the Covid crisis goes through there and radically changes the tricolor plans.
On arrival, after an almost blank year, Guillaume Gille only experienced his first match (and his first defeat) as a coach a few days ago in Serbia.
Not ideal for starting a new cycle.
Before the World Cup, does the French team still scare someone?
via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/MTTSB3txyn
- 20 Minutes Sport (@ 20minutesSport) January 12, 2021
When asked about the necessarily specific context that surrounded his taking office and his first months of work, the person concerned does not drag on and prefers to project himself on the World Cup to come: "In this mission, I have no references, I discover, I experiment, I move forward.
We work a lot with the staff, I rely on people who have the skills and experience in the field to face this type of challenge.
But I am going with a lot of desire and with the ambition to be able to carry out a project that is as clear and as shared as possible so that this team is once again in a condition to perform.
I am guided by this.
A little com'and a lot of sincerity, therefore, especially when he talks about his inexperience at the post.
Complicated indeed to store its passage as n ° 1 in Aix-en-Savoie, between 2014 and 2016, in National 1 (fourth division!), In the box “high level experience”.
Current sports director of Chambéry and former teammate of the little brother in the France team, Bertrand Gille does not contradict us: “In Aix, I saw how the people who worked with him were delighted, but I did not discover my brother and I'm not surprised by that.
What are we talking about?
From a National 1 level club, it is not at all the same as the France team, we must not confuse everything.
"
“He has many qualities that can allow this team to regain its splendor.
The only weak point is that he has never coached a team and that he has been in office for a year but he only had his players for a fortnight in all and everything, analyzes former left-back Jérôme Fernandez.
Even if Guillaume has a lot of quality, he still finds himself in a very particular context which would perhaps have required someone with more experience to bring confidence and a clear and precise game plan.
There, between his lack of experience and his lack of time, it is very complicated.
"
Successful transition between generations
“The context is what it is, philosopher the brother.
Guillaume was free to refuse the offer made to him.
He said yes knowingly.
Well, he still didn't know what was going to happen in the world in the next few months, but there is little point in complaining.
The priority is elsewhere, in fact: rebuilding a group in search of identity and straddling several generations.
After the retirements of Thierry Omeyer or Daniel Narcisse and with the package of Nikola Karabatic, the France team is looking for leaders for this 2021 World Cup. However, for François-Xavier Houlet, new faces are slow to emerge.
"On leadership we should be breaking with the past, but I don't feel like we really want to consume this break," analyzes the former international now consultant for beIN Sport.
We have the great legends who have stopped, Niko is not there, Sorhaindo either [he was not selected by Gille]… We have two elders, the two wingers (Guigou and Abalo), who are not contested in terms of the game but we still say that there are others behind who could take the place.
And then they are not born leaders… ”
"I think that some young players - those of the Rémili, Mahé, Porte, or the next generation, I don't know - will have to take the leadership because even if we still have talent in this team, on arrival you need people who lead, who guide, ”he warns.
The two very average games against Serbia in early January only confirmed this lack.
“Indeed when we see that, we tell ourselves that we are going to need time, concedes Bertrand Gille.
After that, reality is never the same from one competition to another.
"
If he admits that "no gift will be given" to his brother, the former pivot of the Blues, however, believes that he has the shoulders to meet the challenge and build a group capable of bringing the France team to a level more worthy of his rank.
“The experience he has at the top level is strong, all the more strong as his philosophy is based on collaborative work: he puts himself at the service of his boys so that they go and look for something together.
At a given moment, the question is: how does he become a facilitator, how does he make it possible to draw the quintessence of each of the boys, while sparing the moods of some and others ?
I may not be very objective because I speak as a brother and supporters of this France team, but I sincerely believe that he can do it and that his appointment is a good thing for French handball.
"
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