Handball: the Blues face the Swedes for a place in the final

Axel May 1:19 p.m., January 28, 2022

The Blues face Sweden this Friday at 8:30 p.m. to win their ticket to the final of the European Handball Championship.

And the French supporters hope not to tremble against the Swedes, as much as they stressed during the qualification acquired in extremis against the Danes (30-29), even if the goalkeeper Vincent Gérard jokes about it.

"If we have to go through it every time to win, me, that's fine with me. It was a match with a lot of intensity, a match with a lot of suspense. Besides the joke, what also made the difference, it's managing our emotions. We didn't dive when we could have," he said after the game.

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Revenge to take on Sweden

To supervise this French team, reorganized since the Olympic title in Tokyo, the team will be able to count on the star Nikola Karabatic who has almost 20 years of presence with the Blues.

"It's a very long competition. In addition, with the bubble, you feel like you're not leaving the hotel and sometimes like a zombie that doesn't see the light of day. But I hope I'll have still energy. It will be played, of course, in the mind".

But be careful because the Swedes, also narrowly qualified for the last four of the euro, had beaten the Blues in the semi-finals of the World Championships a year ago.

Coach Guillaume Gille, who has missed his team's last three games, confined to his hotel room in Budapest, hopes to be tested, finally, negative to find the bench.