He was keen to show a different face than the one he left on August 7 at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy, during the last action of the quarter-final match against the Germans. No need to retell the story, everyone remembers it. Except that Dika Mem subsequently suffered racist insults and strong criticism against him, particularly from handball specialists.
This evening he talks about a “personal match” for his return to France: “It was my return to France. Very clearly, I wanted to win to begin with, but also to perform well. I think that we have talked a lot about me in recent months, but not about the way I I would have liked to have been talked about. I'm not the player that people talked about. I didn't appreciate the lack of respect towards me, especially from people who ultimately know handball and who know me. “They lacked respect. I really wanted to come back to France and make a good copy.”
He was able to enter Catalonia with his mind liberated; author of 9 goals, he was one of the great architects of the result obtained by his team. He must have appreciated his entry onto the floor at the start of the match, where he was acclaimed by the Nantes public, just like the goalkeeper Emile Nielsen.
“The public allowed us to snatch this draw.”
Faces tired, bodies marked by the fight fought, the people of Nantes arrived in the mixed zone with the hysteria gradually fading from their cloud after this draw obtained against the best team in the world, still undefeated this season. His playing master, Remindreturns to this crazy scenario: “I don't know if we played the perfect match, we had failures, turnovers, but we never gave up, we showed character. We managed to keep them at bay the whole time. match to come back at the end of the match, pushed by the public, we managed to take this point from the draw, somewhat miraculously.
Lucid, he evokes the difficulty of defending against the captains of the Blaugranas, Dika Mem : “Dika is one of the best players in the world, he is an exceptional player. He scores when he wants, he manages to place a supporting shot above Thibeau Briet from 10 meters away. Only he can do That. Sometimes you tell yourself that you can't do anything and that maybe he'll score 10 like that. So much the better, at the end of the match, he misses the important shot. does us good.”
Coaches’ reactions:
While the Ultr'h had once again pulled out all the stops this evening with a huge sail deployed along the west stand, Carlos OrtegaBarça coach, was impressed by the atmosphere at the H Arena: “There was a magnificent atmosphere during the 60 minutes of the match. I was impressed. In terms of the content of this match, I find that the draw was completely legitimate. We had a very strong first half, but the H increased his level of intensity in the second, which put us in difficulty.”
His Nantes counterpart returned to this point at the very last second thanks to the parade by Ivan Pesic : “I'm very happy, very proud of the team and the behavior we showed on the pitch. We managed to stay focused until the end, which allowed us to draw. That's exactly the scenario that I had in mind to put them in difficulty. To believe that we can dominate Barcelona from the start to the end of a match is a utopia.
This is the scenario I had envisaged to put them in difficulty. The players have bought into this state of mind. We managed to pull out all the stops when it was necessary. We had an experience at the end of the match with Rok. Very good performance from our goalkeepers this evening, with a great comeback from Pesic who saved us at the end of the match. It would have been very hard to lose by a goal in that scenario. ''
Felix Landais
