A competition bringing together the elite of world volleyball, the League of Nations, the first stage of which takes place in Ottawa, Canada, from June 7 to 12, is a test for tricolor volleyball players, champions at the Tokyo Olympics (OG). After the gold medal won at the beginning of August 2021, the first in its history, the France team suddenly came down from its cloud a month later at the Euro, beaten three sets to zero in the round of 16 by the Czech Republic. At her place.
Since this defeat, the Blues have changed coach. The Brazilian Bernardo Rocha de Rezende, known as “Bernardinho”, who replaced Laurent Tillie after the Olympics, has returned to his country for personal reasons. He was replaced in March by the Italian Andrea Giani, coach of the Modena club, where Earvin Ngapeth, the tricolor volleyball star, plays.
In Canada, where it first faces Italy (June 9), winner of the last Euro, before facing Serbia, Canada and Poland, France, which has never won this League of nations, will have to deal with the absences of several executives (Benjamin Toniutti, Jenia Grebennikov, Trévor Clévenot and Nicolas Le Goff). A situation that does not worry Andrea Giani:
There is a large reservoir of very high-level French players. The French team is Olympic champion, everyone dreams of beating it. Whatever the circumstances, we must be able to win. It is on the regularity of our performances that we must work.
In the past, the results of the Tricolores have often been irregular: unable to qualify either for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 or for those in London in 2012, they won their only world title in 2015, but they did not could do better than 9are at Euro 2017. In the recent history of volleyball, only two national teams have managed to stay at the highest level for more than a decade: Brazil, coached by Bernardinho between 2001 and 2016, and Italy between 1989 and 2005, with a certain Andrea Giani in its ranks.
“Set up very precise game plans”
At 52, the Italian is a living volleyball legend. As a player, he won three world championship titles, four Euros and two Olympic silver medals. His track record as a coach is more modest – the Modena club is coming out of a difficult season – but he has the advantage of having coached several pillars of the French team playing in the Italian championship (Trévor Clévenot, Jénia Grebennikov…), which facilitated his integration.
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