Report
Handball: France-Ukraine, playing despite everything
Ukrainian and French handball players posing together in Le Havre.
© RFI / Christophe Diremszian
Text by: Christophe Diremszian
4 mins
The French women's handball team faces Ukraine this Saturday in Le Havre for the Euro 2022 qualifiers (from November 4 to 20 in Slovenia, North Macedonia and Montenegro).
Without stake for the Blue, already qualified, this match is however not a duel like the others when the adversaries undergo the consequences of a war and want to show the pride of a whole people.
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From our special correspondent, Christophe Diremszian
France-Ukraine could only have been a useless match.
One of those unmotivating duels at the end of the playoff campaign between a team already sheltered and another already out of the race.
The invasion of Ukrainian territory by Russia just two months ago has weighed down an emotional charge that no one would have dared to imagine when the two teams faced each other in the first leg on October 10 in Sumy. (Short victory of the French 28-25).
A locality in the north of the country, near the Russian border, today bruised.
Since February 24, Ukrainian handball players have necessarily lost their minds in handball.
The horrors of the conflict forced those who played for the country's main club, Galychanka Lviv, to seek refuge in the Czech Republic, where some of their teammates were already playing.
Sheltered, however, they did not have the assurance of resuming the course of the Euro qualifiers.
The EHF (the European confederation) had quickly postponed the two matches against the Czechs scheduled for early March.
But it is above all the money, redirected towards the war effort, which ended up missing.
If the Ukrainians were able to travel to Austria on April 20 to face Croatia – who won 26-19 – seeing them at the Docks Océane in Le Havre is the culmination of the initiative of the French Federation (FFHB) to take cover their travel and living expenses (30,000 euros), and the result is almost miraculous.
“
At the time when the war broke out
, explains Philippe Bana, the president of the FFHB,
my colleague vice-president of the Ukrainian federation, to whom I ask how I can help them, answers me:
“
Philippe, we are under the bombs, I take my car, I take my wife and children to Lviv and I go back to fight in Kiev…
”
”
We manage to reach no one for a very long time, and when we manage to reconnect the thread, he first tells me that the team will be able to come.
But last week, he tells me it's done.
I tell him to leave me an hour, and finally we send him the plane tickets”.
Solidarity and comfort
The recognition of the Ukrainian delegation that came to Normandy without much equipment – the Le Havre club provided training bibs – seems eternal.
“
We will never forget what the French Federation has done for us in these difficult times”
, underlines coach Vitali Andronov, 49, who sheltered his wife and two daughters in the Czech Republic but hesitates to bring them home with him once the international streak is over.
“My youngest daughter would love to, but she also says she's scared.
»
Returning to Ukraine does not seem to be on the agenda for the players, yet overtaken by emotion at the slightest mention of their country.
The day before the match, tears and faces flowed over the hands carried to the heart while listening to the Ukrainian anthem interpreted by the young students of the local Conservatory during a reception at the town hall of Le Havre.
By hugging her French counterpart Estelle Nze Minko at the podium, captain Iryna Glibko, resident of the Romanian club Valcea, experiences one of these short moments of comfort in a difficult daily life.
“At this time, sport helps to refresh our minds and to survive.
It allows us to stay focused on our work when we are on the pitch.
But outside, our mood inevitably has ups and downs.
We still have dear friends who stayed in Ukraine.
Some joined the army or volunteered for the defense of the territory.
We support them and help our people as much as we can.
»
The hope of qualification as a horizon
In this context, gaining a place in the Euro would have enormous symbolic significance in a final stage of which Russia will be deprived*.
The mission looks complicated all the same: the defeat against Croatia already forces the Ukrainians not to miss against the Blues.
But not enough to stress Vitali Andronov.
“The Czechs beat the French on Wednesday, it was almost a miracle.
But we also want to believe it.
We don't give up, we will fight.
The warrior
metaphor is assumed, but in the mouth of a technician who will no doubt get involved in the conflict in the weeks to come while waiting for the conclusion of these playoffs in June, it only makes more sense when we want to stand tall and proud despite the bombs.
*On 28 February, the EHF excluded Russia and Belarus from all national team and club competitions until further notice. The IHF, the international federation, followed suit on March 7.
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