This is an interview as courageous as it is precious. While nothing obliged him to do so, Valentin Porte picked up his phone to explain to the‘Team the reasons for his absence from the gathering of the Blues at the house of handball, which must in particular begin with a debrief of the last Euro finished in 4th place by the France team.
The captain of the Blues explains very honestly that he has been in great pain in recent weeks, suffering which has led him to see a psychologist regularly: “I am at a point where therapy is putting me in great psychological difficulties that I had never lived, he explains. My wife left after the Euros. Which forced me to go to therapy for the first time, to try to manage. Today, I have the impression that with my wife it will work out, in any case I do everything for it. But as my therapist tells me, “what matters to me is you”. There, for two weeks, she has been pressing on things buried deep, that I did not necessarily want to bring out.
This beginning of depression – “the therapist spoke of depression, it must not turn into depression” – for the moment prevents the tricolor rear from joining the France team, where the captain’s armband “eats him a lot of influx. Questioning myself all the time, doubts…these are situations and feelings that make me feel uncomfortable”. Valentin Porte (31 years old, 163 selections) add to having benefited from attentive listening from coach Guillaume Gille, without the two men setting a deadline for their return. “There, I am slowly going up the slope but I need a little time”.