Volleyball. Maxéville-Nancy Volley, forever the first!

From Fréjus where he now lives, Michel Hentzen remembers the smallest details of the day of May 9, 2015. That day, for the big festival of the hexagonal volleyball

Manu Dumortier’s men won the title of French Ligue B champion, placing Nice in three dry sets (3-0) and never trembling (25-20, 26-13, 25-18). “Of all my experience in volleyball, it remains my best memory,” says the former general sports manager of the Nancy club. “We had a ridiculously low budget (530,000 euros) in a pool at 14 teams. We knew how to be smart in recruitment. The ” Discount ” was a bit of our trademark. “

Remarks corroborated by Manu Dumortier, the coach of the time: “We imagined at the start of the exercise being able to cling the title. But the players were of quality. I think I remember that during this final, we made a match that was out of the ordinary. Indeed, we committed that two faults in the service and Nice only blocked us twice. We were simply unplayable ”.

And yet, behind the scenes, the previous days the final had been filled with fears. “We must remember that Jelle Ribbens, our Libero, and the central Mirko Radévic had signed, before this last act, in favor of Nice,” recalls Michel Hentzen. “We did not know how they were going to behave in a match that opened the doors of League A to the winner.” But the two future Niçois showed themselves professional to the end of the nails. “There is already a question of honor and then winning a title is a price,” says Manu Dumortier.

However, the season had not been simple. Michel Hentzen had even often had to play the service firefighters: “There were tensions between the group and the coach but also between certain players. Fortunately, once on the ground, they disappeared. From a more personal point of view, I was doubly happy with this title because in this team also appeared Alexandre, my son, a pure product of the club which had started in pupils ”.

If the images of jubilation are still in memory of the former manager of the club, the latter also has some bad memories of this final. “We had not even been received by Nancy elected officials for this title,” regrets Michel Hentzen. “Inevitably today all of this miss this because the Nancy club is a bit of my baby.” To good hearing. At the time, all the finals of the championship players managed by the LNV were contested in a single match, the same day, in Paris.