Seen from a distance, a handball match can look like a friendly meeting of indoor rugby players. Big guns and artists cross paths there, “piano movers and those who play them” to use an expression dear to Ovalie. If the sizes and roles on the field are more homogeneous among fans of the small round ball than among those of the oval ball, combining power and lightness remains a challenge for the same player. Except when your name is Ludovic Fabregas.
A paradox on his feet, the pivot with the physique of a fort des halles (1.98 m, 105 kg) knows how to elbow when necessary and to do the lace when necessary. Imperial in attack since the start of the Euro, vigorous as a bull in defense, the man with 130 caps has made himself indispensable in the French team.
This one will not be able to win the 4e European title in its history, Sunday January 28 in Cologne (Germany), against Denmark, without its valuable assistance.
Pivot is a thankless job, not recommended for those who like to run and touch the ball often. Camped along the zone line, the position essentially consists, in attack, of blocking opposing defenders by putting your body in opposition, in order to create gaps for your teammates, or for yourself if necessary. Ludovic Fabregas has not always been a pivot. When he started handball, around the age of 14, in his town of Banyuls-sur-Mer (Pyrénées-Orientales), he played as a left back or center half.
“What position do you play?” », we asked him a few years later, when he came to knock on the door of the Montpellier hope center. Tall and strong for his age, the rough-hewn teenager had disguised the truth: “I knew I would have a better chance of being selected by saying I was a pivot, he says. After a trial, the head of the youth center told me that I didn’t know how to do much tactically and handballistically, but that my physical profile interested him, and that I would be “taught” the position. »
“From the register of fight to that of agility”
Thirteen years later, the player from Vezprém, the Hungarian club which he joined in the summer of 2023 after five seasons at Barcelona, belongs to the circle of the best pivots in the world. Assigned to exclusively defensive tasks at the start, he transformed into a cold-blooded scorer, following a meteoric rise which saw him play his first professional match at the age of 17 and make his first selection for the French team a year later. After.
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