What does a career as a high-level athlete mean? Not much. The discovery of a sport, towards which you were not predestined, at school, before everything came together. The training center, the French championship, the Champions League, the French team… while waiting for the Legion of Honor and the parade on the Champs-Elysées after the gold medal at the Olympic Games this summer. This is the funny trajectory of Samir Bellahcene, the goalkeeper of the France team, who faces Sweden, this Friday (5:45 p.m.), in the semi-final of the Euro handball.
“Basically, he wanted to be a football goalkeeper, but he discovered handball at school, like me,” remembers his brother Nassim, who plays in the second division in Frontignan. Afterwards, we both started in a club at the same time, me at 9 and him at 12, we liked it, we never gave up. Really, he was focused on the goalie position, even though he had a stint as a player, and it wasn’t that bad. But he was a better goalkeeper. » And it is not the Austrians, among others, who will tell you the opposite, they who were sent back to their dear studies by the Montpellier (15 stops) during this Euro.
Vincent Gérard must have nightmares about it
Almost 29 years old, Samir Bellahcene (9 caps) explodes for his first international competition with the Blues, following a more than successful first part of the season in Kiel (Germany), which he joined this summer, on loan , hired as a medical freelancer to compensate for the injury of Vincent Gérard, the Blues’ usually starting goalkeeper. His performances across the Rhine were such that Nikola Karabatic’s former club bought out his contract from Dunkirk at the beginning of December, and even dismissed Gérard, six months before the Games.
When we had a meeting with Kiel so that they could buy out his purchase clause, they told us that he had responded beyond expectations, explains his advisor Kacem Ouadah. He came as No. 2 behind Tomás Mrkva, today he is No. 1 bis. Going to a club like Kiel allowed him to legitimately knock on the doors of the French team. Playing in a big European club, which is competing in the Champions League, which is fighting for the title in the Bundesliga…”
Playing at such a level, especially in Kiel, “the club that made him dream”, underlines Valentin Kieffer, who shared the goal in Dunkirk with the Montpellier, Samir Bellahcene was just waiting for that. Upscale clubs had come forward for information, like Vezprem (Hungary), but it never came to fruition. “In his status, he was already a European level player,” explains Tarik Hayatoune, who coached the goalkeeper at Massy in 2017-2018 and in the North in 2022-2023. I couldn’t see him not succeeding. He already knew so much about all the players in the Bundesliga and the Champions League, whether it was about careers, shooters, or player techniques. »
An atypical template
Samir Bellahcene eats handball, sleeps handball, lives handball. To the point of “training six days a week, even the day after matches,” says Hayatoune. Also because boys tend to gain weight easily. An atypical size (120 kg) on which he relies to disgust opposing defenses, particularly on wing shots. “I saw attitudes that I liked in goal, because of his size, because of his ability to be good at parrying timings, to read shots from afar and his morphology helped him enormously, compared to our defensive system, on shots from the wing”, explains the coach, who had recruited him from Massy when no club wanted this goalkeeper who came out of the Montpellier training center, helmed in particular by… Vincent Gérard.
He certainly had a period where he had doubts, but afterwards he made it his strength, and he takes it with a lot of humor now, his brother continues. For me, this is an asset. Before, we had very fast, explosive goalkeepers. Now, we have wider goalkeepers, more in positioning. In addition, Samir is very explosive. I have more difficulty facing a goalkeeper who takes up more space in a goal. »
In Kiel, due to the sequence of matches and the daily presence of a goalkeeping coach, Samir Bellahcene has already lost 10 kg. But the goal is not to become like Kate Moss. “He makes the most of his physical qualities,” confirms Valentin Kieffer. It really allows him to play with the shooter and regularly adapt to the characteristics of the shooter, and their positions. From a mental point of view, he is very strong, he manages to adapt to many situations and not flinch. » Like when we had to fight with Massy in a complicated season where the club was fighting to maintain itself. Despite relegation, Samir Bellahcene finished fourth best goalkeeper in the championship with a good save percentage (34.53%).
Make more saves feat
At the Euro, the success rate is more or less the same, despite a slightly more complicated start to the competition, the time to get your bearings. “For a goalkeeper, evolving at a higher level is difficult, but for him, it was super quick in his adaptation, in Kiel as in the French team,” notes Kieffer. I knew he was very efficient, but to be at the level so quickly, I find it impressive and inspiring. » The fact remains that, even at 29 years old, Samir Bellahcene still has a few points to improve.
“This was already the case with us, but he must progress in his ability to be decisive, even when his defense is in difficulty,” said Tarik Hayatoune. He has the possibility of making more saves, “exploit-saves”, which remains the role of the goalkeeper. But he only has half a season in the Bundesliga, only one international competition, he will get to know his opponents better as he goes along. » Suffice to say that we can arrive calmly for the Olympic Games, nothing will come back.