Paul Rouget, Media365: published on Tuesday January 14, 2025 at 12:03 p.m.
Eliminated in the quarter-finals of “their” Olympic Games, the Blues are revengeful as they approach the World Cup, which they begin on Tuesday against Qatar.
It's Tuesday, at 6 p.m., that the Blues will begin this new World Cup, which takes place in Norway, Croatia and Denmark until February 2. Placed in Group C, they start against Qatar, before facing Kuwait on Thursday then Austria on Saturday, still in Porec (Croatia). Tricolores who will be keen to redeem themselves after their failure at the Paris Olympic Games, where they were pitifully eliminated in the quarter-finals after an incredible match against Germany.
For coach Guillaume Gille, despite injuries, absences and diminished players, the ambition “remains the same. It is both to reposition ourselves in the elite of the nations that dominate. We are coming out of a competition where, in In terms of the game, we have given a bad image to our group and that is what we want to work on, through the game, through our state of mind, to reposition France in its place, to reposition it. France in the circle of teams that count,” he told Olympics.com.
Mem and the “scar” of the Olympics
While Luka Karabatic could play his last World Cup, it is Ludovic Fabregas the new captain of this team who will finally be able to count on Dika Mem, injured in the right shoulder and operated on at the end of November but who will hold his place well. At fault during the elimination against the Germans, the FC Barcelona right-back has turned the page: “The Olympics are behind me. Obviously, if we talk about it again, it's like a scar. It's something something that will always stay in my head. But it's over, it's another opportunity to win a medal.”
There will also be freshness in this group, with Julien Bos's first major international competition. And the Nantes resident is delighted that there are “a lot of young people in the team. The integration therefore happened naturally, he confides to the French Handball Federation. I don't know what it was like before , but we have a group that lives quite well. The group is very united with the desire to show that we are there and that we will always be there. Beaten in the final of the last World Cup, in 2023, after finishing twice in a row in third place, the Blues, winners six times, the last time in 2017, are expected to turn the corner.
Related News :