L’French volleyball team completes its preparation for the Worlds in Montpellier. The reigning Olympic champions are training there less than a week before the start of the competition, which is being played from August 26 to September 11 in Poland and in Slovenia. This Saturday at 8 p.m. at the South of France Arenathe Blues face one of the best nations in the world: the Brazil. A friendly match with a unique flavor for John Patrick, from Montpellier and trained in MHSC Volleyball and Nicolas LeGoff, just champion of France with the Hérault club.
“It’s nice because it’s been a while since we came to get ready here, it’s always nice, I’m at home, with the landmarks, the city, the sun, the friends, the family“smiles the sharp who now evolves in Milan, Italy. “It’s now been three years since I left Montpellier, I’m coming back for other reasons, with the French team and it’s a source of pride“, continues John Patry. The international even takes the opportunity to recall his attachment to his former club. “Return to Montpellier? Yes I would love to! Now, we have to face the facts, at the level at which we play in the French team, it becomes complicated to stay, we have to leave to evolve. There is progress to be made in a lot of areas, but I intend to come back to play for Montpellier, at the end of my career perhaps.“, he asserts.
On his side, Nicholas Le Goff sees this internship in Montpellier as an opportunity “to combine business with pleasure.” “It’s nice, in the evening we go home, the next day we come back for training. We don’t have a lot of free time during the summer, so it allows us to be at home and that’s cool“, explains the central of 30 years, back at MHSC since 2020after playing there between 2011 and 2015.
The favorite France of the Worlds?
Haloed by its title of Olympic champion and a new gold medal last July in the League of Nations, the French team is one of the favorites for these Worlds. A status that prefers to relativize Nicholas Le Goff : “In Volleyball, it is very rarely the same teams that win all the competitions. We know that there is enormous competition. Logically, we know we have something to defend but to say that we are favourites, I don’t think so. We are one of the teams to beat, that’s for sure! We are warned, nothing is guaranteed so we will have to be even more vigilant and it may be even harder!”
Before the match for the men’s team, theFrench women’s teamwho has just won the European league, plays at 5 p.m. against Turkey, still at the Sud de France Arena in Montpellier.