“They were incredible”: the half-center of the Blues Nedim Remili was full of praise for the French women’s handball team, crowned world champion against Norway (31-28) on Sunday for the third time at the end of a final where each player, he said, “knew how to make the team shine at the right time”.
In an interview with AFP on Monday, Remili, world champion in 2017 and Olympic champion in 2021, hopes that the men’s team “can copy them” by winning the Euro next month in Germany. “They were incredible,” he commented, recalling that “everyone was worried after this first match against Angola” where the Blues won 30-29.
But from the quarter-finals against the Czech Republic (33-22), explains the 28-year-old center half, “they were incredible on both sides of the pitch”. “We were always harder on the women because we said that they only won thanks to defense, that they were not good to see playing in attack,” he continues.
Reading belied by their great success (37-28) against Sweden in the semi-final, then in the final. Facing Norway, long at the top of world handball, the Blues took the lead and avoided a comeback. “There are always weak times (…) but the French team, each time, had a player who knew how to make the team shine at the right time,” analyzes Remili.
Praising “the good defenses” and the “numerous interceptions”, he congratulated the goalkeeper Laura Glauser “who put up a crazy competition” but also her substitute, Hatadou Sako, decisive in the second half, “who pulled off the parade that he must”.
And in the most difficult moments in attack, “you have a little twenty-year-old who arrives, Lena Grandveau, who makes the difference, who does not play in her position (usually center half, she was shifted to the position of rear right, Editor’s note). And we can’t say that she’s doing well, what she’s doing is high class.” Lena Grandveau notably scored the last four goals for the French in the final.
According to the former Parisian, today in Veszprem in Hungary, this world title, after those of 2003 and 2017, is also the sign of a “respected heritage”. “The young people who are arriving are hungry for titles because before when we were young, we saw the French team winning. And so you fit the mold, that’s all you want,” he says.
Nedim Remili will join the France team in a few days for a preparation course for the Euro in Germany (January 10-28). “Let’s hope we can copy them,” he concluded
