There it's done.
After its female counterpart, the French men's team has its plane ticket to Tokyo.
His entry ticket to the Olympic Village awaits him at the arrival counter in Japan.
A good thing done: France will take part in its eighth Olympic Games in a row, a meeting that it has never missed since Barcelona in 1992. In thirty years, the “Experts” and company have won a bronze medal there. (1992), one in silver (2016) and two in gold (2008, 2012).
After a period of doubt, France is once again in its place, at the table of the best.
Now, she hopes to enjoy the meal until dessert, until a possible new medal.
Are the Blues, still inconstant and in reconstruction, able to get a fifth Olympic charm in a few months?
: “When we go to the Games and we call ourselves the France team, insists Daniel Costantini the former national coach, medalist in 1992, it is to get the best medal.
I can't imagine anyone making another speech in the next few months.
We will have to be bold.
"
"World handball has rarely been so dense"
Certainly, but from intentions to reality, there is a step.
Are the Blues able to cross it, they who play too often on alternating current from one match to another and sometimes from one half to another?
“World handball has rarely been so dense and the hierarchy between nations is not stable,” notes Jérôme Fernandez, the two-time Olympic champion.
Look at Denmark, world champion, who is beaten on Friday by Macedonia (33-29) in a qualifying match for Euro 2022. Anything is possible.
"
In Tokyo, the twelve best selections on the planet will be there: Denmark, Spain, Germany, Norway… “Apart from perhaps Japan and Argentina, there will be no small opponents there, warns the quadruple world champion.
Everyone will be roughly at the same level.
France will have as many chances to get out in the quarter-finals as to go to the end.
This time, she will have time to prepare and she has the potential to realize this second option.
"
Nikola Karabatic will of course be back
Until then, coach Guillaume Gille will make a choice that risks preventing him from sleeping: with whom will he take the plane?
: “It will be terrible for him, notes Daniel Costantini.
In Montpellier, he has a group of 20 players.
He will only be able to take fourteen to the Games.
Not everyone who is at TQO will go to Tokyo.
There are going to be big disappointments.
So who will be at the party?
With one exception, it is difficult to imagine a player entering this group by the summer.
The young generation around Parisian Dylan Nahi will have to wait until 2024 to discover the Games.
The exception in question is obviously called Nikola Karabatic.
By July, his knee injury will be a bad memory and how can you imagine doing without him?
Impossible and unthinkable.
There are already only 13 places left: "With such a small workforce, Guillaume (Gille) will undoubtedly choose the most versatile players possible, those who can play in several positions," remarks Jérôme Fernandez.
It will be difficult to enter the selection for the boys who cannot.
He will have to find the best possible combination in a team which for the moment is rich on the right side, very rich in pivots but which is perhaps less so in other positions.
"
"There is a good density of players for the France team"
Excluding injuries always possible with the insane schedule, places will therefore be expensive, especially as some seem already promised.
Gille will not do without his old grumblers Luc Abalo and Michaël Guigou with whom he became Olympic champion as a player in 2008. After Tokyo, these two will leave the place but they will share their room for the last time in an Olympic village.
It is also difficult to think that Nedim Remili, Luka Karabatic, Ludovic Fabregas ("The best defender in the world" according to Costantini), Vincent Gérard, Quentin Mahé, Valentin Porte or even Dika Mem will not be there either.
Melvyn Richardson and Yann Genty who saved the soldier France against Croatia scored points.
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Ditto for Hugo Descat at the World Cup when Guigou and his 39 years have a slack.
If we count, well here we are already with 12 players: “I was there, I know what knows but I would not like to be in the place of Guillaume Gille when making his choices, continues Daniel Costantini.
It will make people unhappy.
On the other hand, I'm sure he prefers to have this choice: it proves that there is a good density of players for the France team.
This means above all that he will prepare a selection to go to the Games.
And that he wanted more than anything in the world.