Waking up this Monday morning will be a little painful: France is not world champion in handball and we will have to wait a little longer to embroider a seventh star on the jersey. We’ve been waiting for 6 years so OK, we can still wait two years before the next World Cup. Especially since things will happen between now and then, especially in 18 months in Paris. If it goes well, we will quickly console each other. But still, it’s annoying.
Forty-eight hours after the show of power against the Swedes (31-26), we felt the sturdy Blues, almost invincible again. We thought everything was going really well when the good news came: Nikola Karabatic started the game free of his foot pain. A France team is never the same with or without one of the best players of all time. Lots of little signs let us think that we were going to have a good evening. Except for one red and white detail: Denmark.
When we talk about power, we have with this team the illustration of its definition in the dictionary. The Danes deprived France of an additional star but they definitely entered the history of this game. After 2019 and 2021, they are world champions for the third time in a row: a historic performance. France, which has won everything and even several times, has never managed that. So, even if it’s heartbreaking, let’s also pay tribute to Mikkel Hansen’s intractable teammates. We also salute the career of the former Parisian, the champion with the headband and long hair. In defeat, you have to be a good player.
It will be time for the blue staff to analyze the reasons for this defeat which makes us sad. We are already giving him the tail of an explanation: a failed start to the match. The Blues ran after the score from the start (7-12, 15th) and it was he who went the fastest. Overcoming such a gap is a matter of performance, especially in the final of a World Cup, even more so against opponents who know how to do everything with a sticky ball in their hands. By force of arm and pride, the Olympic champions tried to limit the breakage, even to reduce the handicap. They put back the fence on the defense to reach the break with only one goal behind (15-16). Everything became possible again.
“Keep believing in us”
Especially since at the start of the second period, they returned to equality (17-17). We believed in it again and very strongly. The blue and gold world champion trophy seemed at that time to hesitate to return to Denmark, where it has resided since 2019. And then no: the good news before the match and the tenure of Nikola Karabatic also fizzled. The hand genius returned to the bench, jacket on his back and we never saw him again.
He will never be five times world champion: “We are brothers in the field, he said on TF 1. Most of us were Olympic champions and we wanted to be world champions together. We have to use this defeat, the anger it will create in us to use it as a driving force for the future,” said the genius who was competing in the last of his ten Worlds. He still put an additional line on his record: he had never been vice world champion before. There it’s done.
Meanwhile, the Danes dug the hole again. France, despite its courage, did not find the right shovel to fill it. It’s a shame, it’s frustrating: “Let’s recognize that the Danes had a great match, resumes Nedim Remili on BeINSPORT. However, continue to believe in us. We haven’t finished. It was the fifth time that these two great countries met in the final of a major tournament. France still leads 3-2, but what does it matter. Denmark is still world champion.
