He has already told them everything and they have already heard it all. The national coach lives his last competition. Already nine years, for Laurent Tillie, to train the volleyball players of the France team. Hands sometimes crossed behind her back, sometimes on her hips, a notebook never far away. “Can we finish the Games, already?” “, he joked, a few days ago, intercepting, about him, a question put to a player.
The Tokyo Games are both a last and a first. The last of the coach, but the first qualification for France in an Olympic quarter-final. Already a performance in itself, because the Blues are only playing their fifth edition of the Olympics out of fifteen possible. Match planned against a regular, Poland, Tuesday August 3.
“You have to hit rock bottom to bounce back”, explained the coach in the first round. The bottom ? Two defeats against the United States (3 sets to 0) and against Argentina (3-2). “It’s crazy how sport can bring you down mentally, when you hit rock bottom, you don’t want anything. “ It was, luckily, before “A day of rest, a workout, a volleyball, a video”. The rebound? A victory over Russia (3-1), already qualified, then a loss on Sunday in the tie-break – and therefore a precious point obtained in the standings – against Brazil (3-2).
Rio’s disappointment
“The players, I know them too well, we know each other too well, they know exactly what I’m going to say, and I, what they are going to say”, smiled the technician, in May. This was confirmed by Earvin Ngapeth, a strong personality of the group, on the sidelines of a rally in Mulhouse: “The first recovery training, I already know the first forty minutes. It feels good to get back to our routine, our stuff. Good, afterwards, when you do a three-month internship, you sometimes get tired of doing the same thing every day… ”
Libero Jenia Grebennikov insists on one advantage, that of” to anticipate “ : “We know that when he speaks of ‘summer holidays’, it means a weekend of rest. We know that he counts press day as a day off… even if in the evening we will have training. “ There remains one drawback, by dint of planning everything: the risk of losing concentration, of “Take our ease”.
The difficulty lies in still knowing “Pass messages”, To “ work with the emotions of the players ”, agrees Laurent Tillie. Especially in the small world of volleyball, where generations follow one another. The coach, born in Algeria a year after independence, himself played for the France team. Like his father, Guy. Like one of his sons, Kévin (1.98 m, five centimeters taller), also from Japanese travel. “We need affect, but we have to stay strict. “
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