EuroVolleyM 2023: The Olympic Champs looking for yet another success
The reigning Olympic champions of France are already stamping their tickets to Tel Aviv, where they will have their group phase matches at this year’s edition of CEV Volleyball European Championship - Men.
The players around head coach Andrea Giani start their 2023 #EuroVolleyM journey from Pool D, where they will cross paths with Greece, Türkiye, Romania, Portugal and co-hosts Isarel.
The ultimate favourite in this group, the French will look for repeating their 2015 success, when they became European Champions at the competition, held in Italy and Bulgaria. However, bad news arrived for the French team just before the kick-off off the 2023 #EuroVolleyM - their star player Earvin Ngpeth will miss the first phase of the competition due to problems with the knee. He will still travel to Israel, but Giani probably won’t be able to use him in the matches at this stage.
On the other hand, just over the past weekend, France took part in the 20th edition of the Memorial Wagner tournament, where they locked horns with some of the top European teams - Italy, Slovenia and Poland. In this strong company, Les Blues finished on the last place (4th).
The Olympic Games
France won the gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. In this century, the other two European countries to claim the Olympic title and also became European champions during their four-year reign as Olympic champions: Yugoslavia (2000 Olympic Games, 2001 European Champions) and Russia (2012 Olympic Games, 2013 European Championships).
In the final match for the Olympic gold, France locked horns with the team of ROC. After a five-set battle on the field, the players of head coach Laurent Tillie, were crowned champions at the Olympic tournament. Their strong performance on the serve (nine to one aces) turned out to be crucial for the final win, as the players of ROC outclassed the opponent in attack (60 to 57), and in blocking (eight to seven). Furthermore, the victory proved that the French team counts on a great mental strength, as they could seize the win after good performance in the first two sets, and not so good one in the next two, to only take what they wanted the most in the tiebreak.
The French star Earvin Ngapeth was above all, showing once again, he can be the leader the team needs in critical situations. The outside hitter finished with 26 points in the deciding match.
EuroVolleyM
The last time France won the European title was eight years ago, in 2015. They did so by beating Slovenia in straight sets, with top scorers Antonin Rouzier (21pts.) and Earvin Ngapeth (15pts.). It was again Laurent Tillie that was at the helm of Les Blues, and it is worth mentioning that, on the other side of the net, the head coach leading Slovenia was none other than… Andrea Giani.
However, in the last edition of Europe’s top competition, the French were eliminated in the Eighth Finals (0-3 against Czechia in the eight finals), not living up to the expectations, finishing on ninth place.
It is worth mentioning, however, that in the 2021 edition of the competition, France had just started working with their by then new head coach - Bernardo Rezende (Laurent Tillie had had informed that he would step down after the Olympics). The period of Rezende guiding the team wasn’t a long as, in March 2022, Andrea Giani was announced as new head coach.
As for the 2023 edition of the competition, France have all the prerequisites to advance ahead as pool D winners.
Les Blues have won their most recent European Championship encounters with all of their Pool D opponents: a 3-1 victory against Israel (1967) and straight-set wins against Türkiye (2017), Romania (2019), Greece (2019) and Portugal (2019).
The first battle оf the French will be on August 30, against none other but the other team, considered favourite in the group - Türkiye.
VNL
France finished on 8th place at the 2023 edition of the Volleyball Nations League. Trevor Clevenot became the best scorer for the team (96pts.), followed by Kevin Tillie (92).
In 2022, however, France claimed their first title at the competition, beating USA in the Final game. “The usual suspect”, Earvin N’Gapeth grabbed the MVP of the tournament. Together with Clevenot, they were named best Outside hitters. Jean Patry made it to the Dream team as well, winning the award for Best Opposite, while Jenia Grebennikov finished as Best Libero.
2022 World Championship
The French couldn’t make it to the podium of the last edition of the World Championship, held back in 2022. They finished on fifth place, as they were stopped by Italy in the quarters (and Squadra Azzura were later crowned champions). In that encounter, the French delivered better performance only in attack (56 to 47).
The coaches
In a period of two years, Les Blues have worked with three coaches.
As already mentioned, Laurent Tillie was at the helm of the team at the Olympics, and led the team to the crown. Bernardo Rezende took over right after that event, but could stay coaching the team only for a few months, as he later left the place due to personal reasons.
Andrea Gianni has been working with the team since March 2022. Thanks to his methodology, France claimed the 2022 VNL title, and are ready to conquer the EuroVolleyM.
Andre a Giani“My objective will be to prepare them well physically and technically, and the goal will always be to win. I can't wait to start the season and live this experience with the players who will lead us to the Olympic Games in Paris.”
Head coach of France
Gianni has an experience working with national teams, as before leading France, he was guiding Germany (Silver at 2017 EuroVolleyM) and Slovenia (Silver at 2015 EuroVolleyM). In 2011 and in 2013, he did the same (winning silver medal at EuroVolleyM) but with the team of his native Italy, and as an assistant coach.
Find out if he will bring France back to the podium on EuroVolley.TV.