After a weekend without a match which allowed Ali Nouaour’s men to recover, Amiens Métropole Volley-Ball travels to Arles as part of the 8th day of the championship. A victory would allow the Amiens to make the pass of four.
Following the recent results, the Amiens coach wants to be confident before approaching this match: « we come with a lot of confidence because we have three victories in a row. The objective is to make a pass of four. Arles is a team programmed to play at the top of the table but they are experiencing some difficulties” (against Vincennes and Beauvais which Amiens beat). Despite these good results against teams that Arles had more difficulty with, Ali Nouaour reminds us that we must be wary because “each match has its own story, each match has its own experience so we don’t go there with the pretension that it’s going to be easy […] The idea is to keep this dynamic. I told the players that we shouldn’t put pressure on ourselves. The pressure is more on the shoulders of Arles who do not necessarily have good results. We have the possibility of relaunching the championship a little with a third victory. The best would be to win 3-0 or 3-1 to get back to Arles” declared Ali Nouaour.
This meeting is pivotal for the Samarians due to the very tight ranking, where the teams are one or two points apart, and due to the distance of this trip. Faced with Arlesians having 11 points and a game more, an Amiens victory would allow them to come back to within two points of third place. Especially since “Next week, we will play Villejuif, a poorly ranked team in quotes and Arles will be exempt. With a string of victories, we can potentially, despite our very complicated start to the season, start a return phase with a little more ambition and why not be in the top three” revealed Ali Nouaour. All points count and according to the Samarian coach, the championship remains very open: “oHe is not immune to a completely crazy return phase. We know that there is still a third place open to almost all teams”.
To win, Ali Nouaour’s men will have to exert constant pressure on their opponents: “you have to play hard. We know it’s a team that plays well. They have a very big sharp who comes from Martigues […] who apparently was playing on one leg because he had sciatica. When we see the videos, we see that he is not 100%. Their second pointer is injured for a little while so they only play with one pointer” related Ali Nouaour. After studying the Arlesian game with his staff, the Amiens coach “ knows that their weakness remains reception. So we focused our work a lot on service. We’ll have to be ready because they have two good central players. We will find our former center, Thomas Javel. We don’t know in what condition he will play against us because it’s always very complicated: either we break everything and we have a very big match, or with the pressure, we dive […] It’s up to us to put the pressure and the pressure, we will put it on the service. They have receivers who can crack easily so it’s up to us to serve well to be able to put our defensive block in place.”.
Elite Championship 8th day
Saturday November 30, 8 p.m., Arles, Fournier gymnasium: Arlesian Volleyball (3rd, 11 pts) – AMVB (7th, 6 pts)
Etienne Rycek
Photo credit: Théo Bégler – Gazettesports.fr
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