“There are great things to do in this Euro.” In 48 hours, Guillaume Gille went from strong annoyance to gentle satisfaction. Defeating Germany (33-30), at home, in front of more than 13,000 spectators gathered in the Mercedes Benz Arena in Berlin, is necessarily the type of performance capable of making the French coach smile. Or rather to give it back to him, he who had lost it following the poor draw – in manner – conceded by his troops against Switzerland on Sunday (26-26). By dominating the host country of this Euro, the Blues not only got their heads back on track, but they also took a first step towards the last four of the competition. The second could take place this Thursday (6:00 p.m.), in Cologne, against Croatia…
“It’s a team that also alternated between very good results and slightly more surprising results,” analyzes Guillaume Gille. “Now we should be wary of these Croats who, in my opinion, have regained a commitment and a state of mind which will make them very dangerous. And then it will be a duel between two teams having finished at the top of their group in the first round, so obviously we know the mathematical stakes of such a confrontation. The Dalmatians are indeed coming out of an initially backfiring start to the competition, with a clear success against Spain (39-29), before stupidly conceding a draw to the Austrians (28-28) whom they nevertheless dominated of three goals a few minutes from the end. Bad luck for them, the collapse of the Iberians obliges, their great initial victory has been erased, and only the parity score remains. What suits the… French.
With their two hard-won points against the Mannschaft, they could already create a real difference this Thursday in the event of success on the Luka Cindric gang, who lost one of his main assets with the shoulder injury by Ivan Martinovic. But who will be able to rely on right winger Mario Sostaric, author of a staggering 18 out of 18 shooting in the first round. Now, as Rémi Desbonnet summed up, the main round, “it’s another competition that’s starting, in another place and we’re going to have to digest all that.” “The state of mind was great, our competition is really underway,” said Kentin Mahé. “We found the automatisms, the good rhythm that we did not have in the first two matches. We managed to put the balloons up well. This is a very good thing for the upcoming deadlines.”
Offensively, the performance against Germany largely erased the failures against Switzerland. Like Nikola Karabatic who, after turning 39 in the first two matches, was able to raise his level at the right time to offer more density to a back base which was relying too much on the Dika Mem tandem -Nedim Remili. Without forgetting an Elohim Prandi capable of coming off the bench to send some welcome missiles from nine meters, or an interesting Melvyn Richardson in another style, more aerial and elusive. Convincing against Macedonia, the French wingers, on the other hand, remain on two scores with minor success, which should be improved against the Croats. As for the defense, it once again suffered for many minutes against Germany, before pulling itself together in the last quarter of an hour to regain its impermeability. We will now see if, around Karl Konan, she can continue in the same mode this Thursday. History of opening the way to the semi-finals.
Thursday January 18 (6:00 p.m.)France-Croatia
Saturday January 20 (3:30 p.m.)France-Iceland
Monday January 22 (6:00 p.m.)France-Austria
Wednesday January 24 (6:00 p.m.)France-Hungary