The seventh crown will wait. The Blues came out stronger in the final of the World Handball, defeated on Sunday in Stockholm (34-29) by Denmark, which, after racing in the lead from start to finish, offers an unprecedented hat-trick.
The Swedish capital somehow seems cursed for French handball. Bad nod to history, it’s already there, right next to the Tele 2 Arena where the French faced Denmark’s law, which the pioneers had lost in the 1993 World Cup final (against Russia).
Sunday night’s defeat will probably have a different flavor for the Blues 2023, who were looking for gold and nothing else on Swedish soil against those same Danes (25-23) a year and a half after winning the Olympic title in Tokyo.
But after their titles in 2019 and 2021, the Scandinavians retaliated to make history with a world hat-trick the likes of which had never been achieved.
The Blues had missed this target twice (2009 and 2011, then 2015 and 2017) in the time of the “Experts”, who are thus waiting for their successors on the World Cup list.
Because apart from the golden bracket of Tokyo, the French team has not won a title since the home world championship in 2017.
Guillaume Gille’s band, only promoted at the helm after the departure of Didier Dinart in the aftermath of the Euro-2020 fiasco (first round elimination), had fallen to the foot of the podium at Mondial-2021 and then on the euro -2022.
She is there this time, but not on the top step for Nikola Karabatic’s tenth and final world championship.
At the age of 38, the handball legend started the game despite a still sore left foot.
But he came on the bench after fifteen minutes and witnessed the superiority of the Danes, thanks to their speed of passing, movement and their triple trigger at the back base, made up of Simon Pytlick (9 goals), Mathias Gidsel (6) and Rasmus Lauge (10). The latter in particular was badly injured in the second half.
The guards pass by
The Blues were overwhelmed from the start of the match before gradually rectifying the situation.
In defense and attack, led by Nedim Remili (5 goals at half time, 6 in total) and effective relays, such as Elohim Prandi (3/3, instead of Nikola Karabatic, or Valentin Porte, came opportune to “close” , on his wing, to cause a Danish pass in force (28th).
Just short of half time (15-16), back on level at the restart (16-16), they conceded around the 45th minute, conceding five goals and only scoring two and were trailing by 30 at the start -26. minute.
While Danish incumbent goalkeeper Niklas Landin, double best player in the world title, was expected on the turn, it was his replacement, Kevin Moller, who stood out in the “money time”.
The goalkeeper gave the last hope of the French victory by making his only three saves in the last ten minutes, including one from a shot by Yannis Lenne (27-30, 55th) and another for Melvyn Richardson on a penalty (29-32 , 58th).
On the other side, the French goalkeepers (4/25 for Vincent Gérard, 3/16 for Rémi Desbonnet) never found the parade against the Danish gunners.
