Marmara SpikeLeague (15th day)
We have only just swept away the last confetti stuck at the joints of the Futuroscope doors, after the last passage filled with shivers by Earvin Ngapeth under the tunic of the Alterna Stade Poitevin. 2025 opens next weekend without the iconic star of French volleyball, who passed like a magical comet in the sky of the MSL, to now land on Istanbul soil. Fifth scorer in the championship (14.7 pts), the double Olympic champion left an indelible mark, beyond the stats, and placed Poitiers as the first pursuer of a leading trio, where Tourcoing showed itself to be the most solid and the most constant. With Pablo Koukartsev as an offensive metronome (19.1 pts on average), the TLM has only conceded once this season, at home against Paris!
Following him, Montpellier and Chaumont did things well and are moving upwind, only two lengths behind the leader. Despite a difficult month of November (4 defeats in 5 matches), the Héraultais held the fort, like their Argentinian receiver Tomas Lopez, who hardly wasted a ball, and remain with four successes in a row. If Chaumont suffered in the Champions League, he was able to get back on track in the championship, often propelled by his French offensive traction, Mathis Henno and Pierre Toledo.
We saw another Frenchman rise and reveal himself in this first part of the season, the Toulouse striker, Nathan Feral (21 years old, 14 pts average). Sent into the starting six from the 7th day, he is today the best server in MSL in this first part of the season (23 aces). And his generation friend, Henri Léon, also showed his nose nicely at the SNVBA (12.2 pts), with the experience of the Champions League as a bonus, even if times in France are tough for the outgoing champion, at the trails with only four victories.
After a very delicate start to the season and only one success in six matches, the TVB rectified the situation and balanced the balance sheet at the end of December (7-7). The Cannes promotion had an opposite trajectory, with a thunderous start under the hooves of its Egyptian point guard, Reda Haikal, before seriously getting stuck and ending the year 2024 with six consecutive defeats. Carried by its German gunner, Simon Hirsch (19.7 pts), Nice is in the race for the Play-Offs, just like Sète and Paris, which has in its ranks both the Great Wall, with Shikun Peng (13 against against Le Plessis-Robinson) and the No. 1 attacker in the MSL, the Slovenian Nik Mujanovic (20.5 pts).
Finally, even if it is a season without a scheduled descent, Saint-Nazaire, as we have said, but also Narbonne and Le Plessis-Robinson, the last three in the class at the end of December, are waiting better at the start of the school year.
