France are back together for the first time since failing to progress past the pool stages at Rio 2016
Lausanne, Switzerland, May 23, 2017 – France will seek to put their Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games disappointment behind them when they take the next step in qualifying for the Italy-Bulgaria 2018, FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship.
Laurent Tillie’s team host one of six pools in the second round of European Qualification from Thursday May 25 to Sunday May 28 and they will face Iceland, Ukraine, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Germany in the Big Hall at Palais des Sports de Gerland in Lyon.
It will be the first time that the team have met since Rio 2016 where they failed to progress beyond the pool stages. It was something of an anti-climax for a team that had won the 2015 FIVB World League and European Championship and who had gone into the Games having won bronze in the 2016 World League.
The Qualifying Tournament marks the start of a busy time for France, who begin their 2017 FIVB World League campaign a week later when they travel to Kazan to take on Russia, Bulgaria and Argentina.
“There is always anxiety or rather uncertainty, whatever the competition and the moment,” Tillie said. “We are always a little worried about the level we are going to have, even more now, because we are recovering and because there are new players.
“We have five games to play and five games to win if we want to qualify, that's all. We now have enough experience to say that anything can happen, we try to have the best preparation to reduce the uncertainty that I was talking about. What is certain is that we need this qualification.”
Germany are likely to be France’s main threat to qualification for the World Championship. The top team at the end of the five days qualifies directly, while the second-place team will qualify for the third and final qualification tournament that takes place in July.
It means that the cross-border rivals' match on the final day is already shaping up to a winner-takes-all fixture and a repeat of the Poland 2014 World Championship bronze medal match that Germany won 3-0.
“For me Germany are the favourites,” Tillie said. “They were third in the World Championship, come with all their big players and a new coach (Andrea Giani), so it's a big challenge for us.
“There is always some frustration for the injured players like Kevin (Tillie) or Franck (Lafitte), nostalgia also for players who have stopped or who have been dismissed, but these players are used to these turnovers and as we have high targets, integration has to be done quickly.
“I still have questions. What is difficult on a short preparation at the end of the season is to return to an equal physical level for everyone. The first week, you have to get everyone back to the same level so that they can then have the same level of training.
"Secondly, an attempt was made to increase the quality of the training, it was not obvious, because we felt that there was a lack of concentration probably due to fatigue, but it was improved little by little.”
For more information on the European World Championship Qualifiers, head
here.
France Squad
Jenia Grebennikov
Trevor Clevenot
Benjamin Toniutti
Julien Lyneel
Earvin Ngapeth
Kevin Le Roux
Antoine Brizard
Stephen Boyer
Nicolas Le Goff
Daryl Bultor
Guillaume Quesque
Thibault Rossard
Nicolas Rossard
Barthelemy Chinenyeze