Multiple generations of the French handball team may have the trophies like no other sport, we are waiting for the poster for this Tuesday (21 hours in Zagreb) France-Egypt with a certain apprehension. Admittedly, the Blues were impeccable in the group matches of this 2025 world championship (6 victories in 6 games), but the arrival of the cup appointments is something else.
Especially since at the time of challenging in the quarter-finals of the Pharaohs who had held them in check last summer in Paris (26-26), it is difficult not to rethink the nightmarish scenario of the last quarter disputed, to Knowing the cruel elimination against Germany (34-35 after extension) during the Paris 2024 Olympics. This controversial dead time, this loss of cursed ball of Taulier Dika Mem, all this could not be forgotten in just five month. This is why the French team has focused on important work with their mental trainer Pierre Arthapignet.
“No specific work with Dika Mem”
“Everyone did a job of mourning, because the failure of the games was still a micro-trauma within the team that it was absolutely necessary to work, neutralize to engage in this World Cup without wanting to catch up Error of the Games, which could have been the error to make, explains it. They are not in this state of mind, even if, most certainly and at an implicit level, the memory remains present and a little hot. »»
Pierre Arthapignet underlines both “individual and at the level of the whole group”. “There was obviously a complete cleaning to make of this experience, and as close as possible to the games,” says the mental trainer. The latter was particularly based on “escape games” and “collective sessions with metaphors that pass implicit and indirect messages” in order to (re) boost “the cohesion” of the group.
Our file on the French handball team
All while specifying that there was “no reason to work specifically with Dika Mem”, on the front line in this disillusionment of Villeneuve-d’Ascq. We will know this Tuesday evening if this “team building” and this mental preparation pass the first big major crash of the World Croatia.
(tagstotranslate) Sport