The French finish fourth in the Euro after a defeat against Montenegro.
The French handball players leave Euro-2022 empty-handed after their overtime loss to Montenegro (27-25) in a high-tension bronze medal match on Sunday in Ljubljana.
Less than 48 hours after their dry elimination in the semi-final against Norway (28-20), Les Bleues have not found the resources to bounce back and remain out of an international podium for only the second time since the return of Olivier Krumbholz at their head in 2016.
Very far from the 27-19 demonstration of the main round a week earlier against this same Montenegro, this match showed French Olympic champions, feverish against a team having “malice and even vice», said Olivier Krumbholz last week.
Also faced with hundreds of hostile supporters shouting at them, the tricolors multiplied the loss of balls and stumbled on Batinovic in an excellent evening (11 saves, 37%).
The penalty missed by Grace Zaadi to return to a length (26-24, 69th) sealed the meeting. But it was to the center half that the Blues owed their survival in overtime (23-23) since she had equalized with a shot from 7 m on the buzzer under a deluge of decibels.
Beyond the unbreathable atmosphere, like the thirty or so law enforcement officers deployed in front of the Montenegrin stand section at the end of the match, the tricolors suffered from adverse circumstances.
First, the mental asymmetry after the half-time outing between the Blues used to higher standards and the Montenegrins in a position to win their first international medal in ten years. And already happy to invite themselves into the last four as delivered by Jovanka Radicevic to Béatrice Edwige during the transfer from Skopje to Ljubljana.
On the Stozice vinyl, they faced an inhabited selection for the very last match in the two-headed eagle jersey of this same Jovanka Radicevic. Icon in the small Balkan republic (620,000 inhabitants), the 36-year-old left winger is from the team crowned Olympic champion during the sumptuous year 2012 of the Montenegrins, also vice-champions of Europe that year.
Twenty months before the Paris-2024 Olympics, for which they are automatically qualified, the French Olympic champions were able to measure the gap separating them from Norway.
The next and last deadline before the Games, the World Cup-2023 in a year in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, where they already have their ticket, will say a lot about their trajectory.
