No need to look: the most incredible goal of the European Men’s Handball Championship was scored on Friday January 26. It is 7:20 p.m. in the Lanxess Arena in Cologne (Germany), the clock stopped at the last second of the 60e and last minute of the semi-final between France and Sweden. The buzzer even just rang. Trailing by one goal (26-27), the Blues have almost no hope of getting back on track, despite a last chance free kick, which will have to be taken without momentum, as authorized by the regulations. Only fools still believe in it. The crazy and those who know Elohim Prandi’s shooting skills. Arms raised, the six Swedish outfield players – whose height hovers around 2 meters – have erected a completely impassable wall. Except to pull, not above, but to the side.
Son of two former international handball players – Raoul Prandi and Mézuela Servier – the Paris Saint-Germain player knew that only a gamble could pay off in such a desperate situation. “I was very close to the wall. Further on, I could have tried to get over it, but there, no, I had no chance, he will say after the match. I knew that by pulling to the side I could bring the ball up. And it came in. » It even went “well”: timed at 118 kilometers per hour, his shot after a lateral dive – a gesture as improbable as it was unpredictable – smashed into the top corner of his club teammate, Andreas Palicka.
Few of his teammates still believed in it, with the exception of Nikola Karabatic. “I was sure he was going to wear it. He has incredible shooting quality. We have already seen him score in the same way in the French championship”, confided the dean of the Blues (39 years old), for whom this is the last Euro. Guillaume Gille, for his part, was not leading the way. “Frankly, being rational, we know at that moment that we have a one in a thousand chance of scoring. It was poorly shipped”admitted the coach of the France team, stunned like the rest of his staff by the audacity of his left back.
Rare dramatic intensity
The Swedes were never going to recover. Groggy, they then conceded three goals in a row at the start of extra time, all scored by another bench player, Dylan Nahi, who entered at the end of the match like Eholim Prandi. The Blues were able to fly to a victory (final score 34-30) which was both miraculous and not undeserved given the progress of this unbreathable match, of rare dramatic intensity. The 19,000 spectators at the Lanxess Arena, who came mainly to watch the other semi-final, between Germany and Denmark (which ended in a victory for the Danes, 29-26), witnessed the most extreme scenario. rich that a handball match can offer.
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