Metz, always placed but never winning in recent seasons, brought France the first Women’s Handball Champions League in its history by beating double title holder Györ in the final (31-29), Sunday June 8 in Budapest. After breaking the glass ceiling of the last four, by erasing four failures on Saturday against CSM Bucharest (32-27) on the threshold of the final, the Lorraines won the stars in front of their approximately 700 supporters, all dressed in yellow.
“The club has existed for 60 years, and we have been waiting for this moment for 60 years,” Emmanuel Mayonnade told them on the microphone, 45 minutes before kick-off, making a club created 61 years younger by a year. This success rewards the European pugnacity of Metz: 38th campaign in a row (for four semi-finals of C1, four of C2 and a final of C3, before this year) since the first in 1989-1990, in the wake of the first of the 27 French championship titles. To which should be added 14 French Cups, which is in fact one of the most successful clubs in France in all sports combined.
“Metz is a club apart. Do I have the right to say that it is legitimate that the largest French women’s handball club is the first to win the Women’s Champions League? It may not be offensive to others,” Mayonnade continued, expressing his “feeling of duty accomplished.”
It was Olivier Krumbholz, a local child, who began, at the end of the 1980s, to fill the cupboards of what was still called ASPTT Metz with trophies. The future emblematic coach of the French women’s team left the club in 1995, ten years before the arrival as president of Thierry Weizman.
Called for a simple interim at the bedside of a then moribund club, the sports doctor still runs it after having transformed it, economically and sportingly, to make it one of the best cars on the continent and strengthen its status as a breeding ground for French players.
Proven know-how
Sportingly, this rise owes a lot to Mayonnade, who arrived on the bench in 2015. The Girondin, who will celebrate his 43rd birthday on June 12, has managed to accomplish feats almost every year in the Champions League despite a budget (5 million euros) well below the competition. Which consequently comes, almost every summer, to help itself in Lorraine, like Györ who will welcome this summer the Messina captain and pivot of the Blue Sarah Bouktit.
But the proven know-how of Metz Handball and Mayonnade allows it to welcome, to compensate for these departures, emerging talents, foreign or French like Lylou Borg, whose goal, the first after six minutes without scoring, relieved an entire team (31-28, 57th).
The reputation of the Lorraine also leads them to make some big moves, like last summer with the signing of Johanna Bundsen. The Swedish international goalkeeper, then free after Ludwigsburg (Germany) filed for bankruptcy, was less decisive on Sunday than in the semi-final the day before. But she made a decisive save in front of Anna Lagerquist three minutes from the end (31-28).
Upstream changes
The Messines showed admirable cohesion and courage in defense to stop the Hungarians’ play and find space in their rough defense (a red card and four temporary suspensions).
Then, after widening the gap (28-22, 45th), in particular thanks to the once again phenomenal game of Sarah Bouktit (12 goals on 15 shots including 2/3 from penalties), voted best player of the Final Four, they were able to resist their return in the deafening noise. Which stopped when Lucie Granier caused a strong pass 50 seconds from the end, synonymous with victory.
Metz finally leaves Budapest as a winner, after making some changes ahead of the Final Four. In the mental approach, to dispassionate the event and approach it “as a trip like any other”, explained Bouktit on Friday.
“It is often said (that one must have) a warm heart and a cool head. That’s a bit of what the team had (Sunday), that’s what we tried to work on this season with Manu, who made a lot of effort to manage his stress,” underlined Lucie Granier.
The coach also rotated his squad more during the season to preserve the freshness of the troops, to the point that Bouktit was never in such good shape at the end of the season. And happy, probably.
