Do you just like the ketchup impact? We have all been there earlier than: you faucet, faucet, faucet on the butt of a ketchup bottle, however nothing comes out till – Splatch! – sufficient to dip the equal of a day’s consumption of fries in Belgium in your plate. Effectively, that is what the French handball crew goes by means of as they face Germany within the quarter-finals of the left-handed World Cup on Wednesday.
This uncommon commodity is sorely missing in high-level handball – as a result of ideally you want no less than two to carry the place of proper winger and proper winger, i.e. 30% of the crew, whereas left-handers solely make up 10 to 13% of the world’s inhabitants – from this viewpoint, the Blues are rolling in gold now. Gone are the times when Claude Onesta, within the galley of left-handers holding the way in which, needed to ask right-hander Jérôme Fernandez for assistance on the right-back.
“It’s a nice wealth that different nations will envy us,” agrees the previous captain of the Specialists. With Nedim Remili, Dika Mem, Melvin Richardson, Valentine Porte and Yanis Lenne, The Blues are armed like no different on the 2023 World Cup. Looking back, Philippe Bana would have virtually laughed it off.
“It is a loopy story as a result of we had proficient left-handers for a really very long time, after which it step by step dried up, to the purpose that within the early 2000s on the Sydney Olympics we had been fearful that we did not have good left-handers. We had been very fearful, as a result of we realized to play with them, there was an admission of helplessness. After which, lastly, all of them immediately got here again at a time once we now not anticipated them. It began raining left-handers in French handball final night time! »
In quest of a lacking left-hander
How you can clarify it? For his half, the FFH president prefers to play “humly” when speaking a couple of “present from heaven.” “You should not see it as one thing very organized,” he explains. There’s a giant proportion of case and case within the detection guidelines which were launched. We received the lottery there! However, federal consideration additionally performed a task on this hunt for leftists. Each time the membership had an excellent participant amongst its kids, it made positive to seize his ass and move on the knowledge.
“We’re like gold diggers,” explains Philippe Bana. We’ve got no proper to be mistaken or miss a uncommon pearl. Right now, whether or not as a goalkeeper or a right-back, everyone seems to be in search of a nugget. My daughter is 7 years previous, she went to her membership a 12 months in the past and everybody was her saying “oh how large she is” however nothing else. At one level she mentioned “I am left-handed” after which everybody got here to inform her “come, come to our home!”. Certainly, this factor exists. »
What’s extra, it was this particularism that made Dika Mem strive his luck, which was completely not predestined for a profession. “If I used to be right-handed, I most likely would not play handball,” he advised AFP in 2017. “I began as a result of I used to be advised that left-handers had been needed and that I might play within the division choice. “If this phenomenon can be not new, most left-handed French nationwide groups have already got a small blue bottle, it was nonetheless essential to adapt to this abundance and take into consideration how you can “use it” correctly. So as a substitute of placing all of them in competitors for the positions of defender and proper winger, “which might be an enormous loss” in response to Olivier Krumbholz, head coach of the French girls’s crew, France made positive to play on the precept of complementarity. profiles and shake the codes of handball that has at all times been left wing.
“We ended up with such an abundance of left-handers that we ended up watering different positions they weren’t predestined for, such because the quarterbacks that Nedim Remili and Melvin Richardson play in the present day, one thing we have by no means seen handball in half a century,” explains Bana. This creates new alternatives from a tactical viewpoint and creates numerous issues for opponents. »
Why ? “As a result of 98 instances out of 100 in handball on the highest stage, the centre-back is right-handed. I allow you to think about the complexities of protection related to the sudden have to adapt to a left-handed individual, ”provides Olivier Krumbholz. Jérôme Fernandez deciphers: “Once you’re a centre-back like Luka Karabatic or Ludovic Fabregas and also you’re used to defending in opposition to right-handers within the centre-back place, you will have automatisms which are created by your back-up pair and they’re nervous when it’s important to defend with the south paw. The trajectories of the ball usually are not the identical, nor are the consequences and passing strains, it isn’t straightforward to adapt to. »
Left-handed, “personalities aside” for Krumbholz
If, in response to numerous research, this uncommon species is way more represented (and due to this fact pampered) in high-level sport than within the basic inhabitants, amongst different issues resulting from a barely sooner response time than right-handers when it’s t, then visible and spatial data , left-handed folks have by no means had it straightforward in society. Even within the linguistics of some international locations the place the phrase “left” is usually pejorative. For instance, in French it’s synonymous with clumsiness, clumsiness, unbalanced. And if you’re in a foul temper, as if by probability, how did you rise up, huh? Prior to now, at college, they had been required to power themselves to jot down with their proper hand or else they might strive a cane.
Even when instances have modified, fortunately the life course of left-handers makes them distinctive athletes, as Olivier Krumbholz says: “Left-handers are sometimes distinctive gamers within the group, they’re typically distinctive personalities. This is because of their uncommon profession, each in handball and in on a regular basis life. Once you’re left-handed in life, it is not with out penalties. For instance, there are various kitchen utensils which are tough to make use of. Society remains to be organized for right-handers, and this atypical course typically breeds atypical personalities. Personalities that the France crew abounds in, to the delight of coach Guillaume Gille. And the dangerous luck of the opposing crew’s coaches.