A few days after the announcement of the retirement, at the end of the season, of Nikola Karabatic, another major news comes to shake up the daily life of French handball. Patrice Canayer is much less known to the general public than the man who was three times the best player in the world. But the announcement of the departure of the Montpellier coach at the end of the season is a major event for handball and, more generally, French sport.
At the bedside of the most successful club in France, Patrice Canayer has won almost everything there since becoming its coach in 1994. The success of the MHB is closely linked to that of this perfectionist, recognized as one of the greatest technicians of his sport. A visionary and trainer, who very quickly understood that the longevity at the high level of the MHB could only pass through an ambitious training policy. His record is exceptional: 42 titles, including fourteen champions of France and two successes in the Champions League. All sports combined, he is one of the coaches (then manager since 2004) of the most successful French club in history. In the same way, for example, as Guy Novès (10 times French champion with Toulouse and four European rugby cups).
Record longevity in professional sport
The Gardois wanted to keep control of the timing, announcing to the Free lunch And The Team, his departure in June 2024, at the end of his contract. A habit for those who, until the end, will have imposed their choices, their intransigence and their vision of the high level. Decisions regularly validated by the results. Even if it means creating a few enmities in the landerneau of French handball. Even if it means hitting, sometimes, too. As in 2019, with Michaël Guigou, where the sporting choices left no room for feelings for the emblematic player, asked to leave the club despite his brilliant record of service.
Thirty years on a bench, such longevity is unlikely in professional sport. “Everything could have stopped in 1995,” he explained in 2020 to the Free lunch, when his adviser at the time told him to take advantage of the first title of the MHB to monetize his talents elsewhere. Proposal swept by the interested party. And if he had agreed to join the great Barça, the most successful club in the Champions League (eleven crowns), after the first European title in 2003, the affair fell apart at the last moment, on the Catalan side. On the other hand, in the storm of the sports betting affair of 2012 (date of the last national title of the MHB), the manager will have stood up and helped to save an institution dropped by several sponsors and close to being sunk by its own stars. .
From sports to politics
“Since his arrival in 1994 […], Patrice Canayer was the main element in the evolution of Montpellier Handball to make it what it is today: a great national and international club”, pays tribute to him the president of the MHB Julien Deljarry. Montpellier has one year to find a successor to the icon. In June 2024, Patrice Canayer will be 63 years old. “It was time to say stop,” he explains. After thirty extraordinary, exhilarating years. It’s a wonderful story. I could never have imagined having such a beautiful professional history.
A departure and, for the moment, a question mark on the rest of the story. “Let’s be clear, I’m not leaving Montpellier Handball to sign for another club. […] I want to be free to carry out my professional activity, my life as I want, without being contractually bound”, he specifies to France Blue Herault. Perhaps he will choose to engage more in the political way. Long close to the former mayor of Montpellier Georges Frêche, support for the 2014 municipal elections of Jean-Pierre Moure, socialist candidate beaten by the dissident Philippe Saurel, head of the list in the Hérault of Carole Delga in the regional elections, Patrice Canayer, who sits in the regional hemicycle, has never hidden his closeness to the PS.