“At the same time, what else can surprise us about him? », asks Guillaume Gille. The question is rhetorical, of course, when we talk about Nikola Karabatic. Almost 40 years old (in April), the inexhaustible boss of French handball continues to give the Blues the benefit of his knowledge and his aura, still hungry even after having won everything – and rather three times than once.
Thursday evening, thanks to his four goals scored during the victory against Croatia (34-32), the left back (or center half) of the France team added yet another line to his monarch record by becoming the best director in the history of the Euro, with 289 goals. A symbolic mark which will most certainly be erased by Mikkel Hansen (276 goals for the Danish sniper), but which will at least please… the player’s mother. “Two games ago, my mother put pressure on me. “You have to score 8 goals,” she told me. “You can be the top scorer,” said the person smiling after the match, speaking to beIN Sports.
As a good obedient son, Karabatic therefore performed under the eyes of his mother, who was in the stands. He even did a little better, with four and five goals respectively against Germany then Croatia – not just anyone, by the way. Here he is at the top of the hierarchy, a few days after celebrating his 350th selection with the Blues, since his big debut more than twenty years ago now (October 2002).
“The other day, we glossed over this a bit,” points out Guillaume Gille. But there are so many things surrounding his career! » The coach no longer knows what word to use to talk about his leader, with whom he won two Olympic titles, a world crown and two European crowns when he was still a player. Great little harvest, to which Karabatic has added four major trophies since (Euro 2014, World Cups 2015 and 2017, Olympic Games 2021). “Nikola wrote his name at the top of every list. But when we stop at it, when we realize the number of Euros he has already played [11]the number of matches at the Euro [75], it’s inhumane. Inhuman,” insists Gille.
“This year, it’s the pleasure of the field”
Even if it means talking about numbers, Karabatic has a request to make for anyone who wants to get a hold of it: “I like stats, I would have liked to know on how many shots, I would have liked to know my assists, lots of stuff », Launched the player, even if for this last season before the bowling, the main thing is elsewhere. “My whole career, obviously, I’ve been playing for the records. But this year, that’s not what I have in mind, it’s the pleasure on the pitch. I know it can stop at any moment and it really allows me to be in the moment. »
This last lap is supposed to take him to the Paris Olympics next summer, with the prospect of giving his farewell all the shine they deserve. We’re not there yet. For now, it is the Euro that counts and nothing else. The Blues, who face Iceland on Saturday (3:30 p.m.), have all the cards to reach the semi-finals and try to win a title that has eluded them for ten years. A real shortage on the scale of the French handball team.