A week after beating it in the group stage, the French women’s handball team meets Norway, its tormentor in recent years, in the final of the World Cup to try to win a third world title in Herning (Denmark), twenty years ago. after the first. “We’re honestly fed up,” says Chloé Valentini, left winger of the Bleues beaten by the Scandinavians in the final of Euro-2020 (22-20) and the World Cup-2021 (29-22) and in the semi-final of Euro-2022 (28-20).
They had, according to captain Estelle Nze Minko, left Slovenia with “a lot of bitterness” last year after this new failure, a bitterness partly erased by the victory last Sunday in Trondheim (Norway) at the conclusion of the tour main (24-23). “We know very well that it will not be the same match. We will not have to put enormous pressure on ourselves either, because when we play with pressure, we are not ourselves, we stress a little and we play with the handbrake. We have nothing to lose, just enjoy it, play together and win,” notes Pauletta Foppa.
The pivot will once again have a key role in disrupting the Norwegian mechanics and blocking, through his attacks, the left back Henny Reistad (1.81 m), probably the best player in the world, who has scored 15 goals (all of which those of his team in overtime) in the semi-finals against Denmark (24-23). “Perhaps the Danes have not found where to put the grain of sand to put them in difficulty. We are going to work on it”, underlines, mischievously, the coach Olivier Krumbholz, announcing “to prepare some adaptations” by compared to last Sunday’s success.
“Another way”
The French threat is more diffuse, according to Nze Minko: “We have to be careful in all sectors. I like that. It creates a lot of danger, it’s very hard to prepare for our adversaries.” The French team has progressed since the disillusionment of Euro-2022, where it had “the feeling of not having played (its) game, of being wrong,” says Nze Minko. The captain, with her teammates and coach Olivier Krumbholz, are therefore convinced “that we had to take another path”. “And we took it,” she said.
With a view to defending the Olympic title in Paris in 2024, the decision was made to open the game on placed attacks, a traditional weak point for Les Bleues. While reinforcing one of their ten-year weapons, these rapid ball surges which punish and asphyxiate the opponent in front of an iron defense.
“Dwarves who run fast”
Nze Minko “feels that another step has been taken in this competition” in this sector by her and her “band of runners”. She develops the expression: “Olivier (Krumbholz) likes to tell us sometimes, in a joking tone, when he is a little angry because we do things that don’t work: ‘You know who you are ?You’re a bunch of fast-running dwarfs!'”
Deprived of Béatrice Edwige, its head of defense for a decade, sidelined to make way for the next generation played by Sarah Bouktit, this “band of fast-running dwarfs” has won all its matches since the start of the competition, in Norway until in the quarter-finals then in Denmark from the semi-finals.
The Blues, however, presented themselves at this Scandinavian World Cup with no real objective other than that of measuring their progress before the big Olympic event. But now, after the demonstration in the semi-finals against Sweden (37-28), “everyone wants the title”, according to Foppa, who became international a few months after the second and to date last world title, in 2017 in France.