Gearing up for World League: Team France

I’ve gotten way behind on these, so I’ll need to start clustering them together again. For now, he’s the rundown:

Egypt Portugal
Japan
Iran
Netherlands
South Korea
Finland
Canada
Italy
Argentina
Serbia
Russia
France
Brazil
Germany
Bulgaria
Cuba
USA
Poland

France is not exactly the first country I’d have thought of as a quote-unquote “volleyball nation.” Certainly the teams below them on the rundown have more of a history in the sport at the international level, and so do a few of the teams above them. But they’re not Iran, nor Portugal, neither the first-timers nor the time-honoured punching bags. They’ve participated at the Olympics three times, last at the Athens Games of 2004. They’ve been frequent challengers at the world championships, playing all but three of the tournaments and claiming a bronze medal back in 2002. They’ve played all but one CEV European Championship as well and have four silvers from that event. They’ll return for the next edition later this year, in addition to playing the World League.

This year’s World League tournament will be France’s 15th consecutive participation, and 18th overall. Last year, they profited a little by drawing Italy in their pool. Ordinarily that would be ten kinds of bad news, but Italy didn’t bring their A-squad to last year’s World League, instead holding them back for the London Olympics. France were still hoping to qualify for London at that point, qualification they only just missed. A great deal of the same players played World League and Olympic qualification for France last year, so it looks like they took the approach Poland did, by bringing their best players to World League.

And….they were successful. She says cautiously. They won all four matches against an outmatched Korea team that won only once, against Italy’s C-team. They took 3 of 4 from the Italians (the one miss was in the first week, when Italy played a few more of their regulars). They split the 4 matches with the USA team, and the Americans were not sitting their regulars. They and the Americans were both 9-3, and with the Americans playing fewer 5-set matches, they won the pool (even though France had a better points ratio). They also missed out on the lucky runner-up slot, with that going to Brazil despite the Brazilians having only won 8 matches. With 6 teams in last year’s finals round and the French coming seventh-from-last in this rundown….yeah, they just missed out. It had to be especially disappointing knowing that 2012 was probably going to be one of the strongest years for them.

The head coach of the French national team is Laurent Tillie. That name had better sound familiar to you — yes, he’s Kevin’s dad. He played on two of France’s Olympic volleyball teams, in ’88 and ’92 (shortly before and shortly after Kevin’s birth, incidentally). He is a very well-respected coach worldwide, and as of last year ascended to probably the most significant job of his career. He leads a club mixed with veterans and youngsters. I was moderately surprised to see the team’s roster does include Kevin — surprised not because I thought him undeserving (far from it), but because it seems difficult to be at one’s physical best for as long as Kevin has. He played last year’s NCAA season, senior international play including the World League over the summer and fall, and this past NCAA season, all without really stopping. I know he’s only 22 (though he’s over a year older than the youngest man on the roster, middle blocker Nicolas Le Goff) but that’s a tall ask of even a young, fit person. The floor captain for the French is also a young man, setter Benjamin Toniutti. The team’s most experienced player is back-row specialist Jean-François Exiga, a seven-year veteran of the national team with 121 ‘caps’ to his credit. Outside hitter Antonin Rouzier actually has more match experience than Exiga, but hasn’t been around for as many years.

Most of the players on the national team are members of teams in France’s own Pro A league, a solidly-respected competition that sends teams to the CEV Champions League (though French teams have won that event or its antecedent only twice). A few play abroad. Rouzier is one, playing for a team based in Poland. Outside hitter Earvin Ngapeth, the only other player besides Le Goff to be younger than Kevin Tillie, plays for Bre Banca Cuneo in Italy, this year’s Champions League runners-up. Utility player Samuele Tuia plays for a team based out of Russia, and outside hitter Guillaume Quesque earns his paycheque in Italy. One happy side effect of my falling behind on these is that the rosters are now set in stone, and it’s not based off half-guesswork or early announcements. France’s roster for the 2013 World League can be found here.

So are we looking at a winner?

They seem pretty likely due for a downturn. They are in the brutally difficult Pool A with Brazil, Poland, USA, Bulgaria, and Argentina. They’ve got to be better than three of those teams, or two of them if one ahead of them is Argentina. That’s a pretty tall ask for anybody (this is a very strong pool), and it’s perhaps taller for the team that are ranked 15th in the current FIVB international standings. The other five teams are all in the top nine.

But of course, we’ll see. Someone’s bound to surprise. I’ll be very, very interested to see just how much Kevin Tillie does play. France’s road trips are to USA, Brazil, and Argentina. There’s every reason to believe we’ll see him in the two matches against USA. He played in the American round-robin last year, too (last year had a different format — each week was a round-robin against everybody in your pool, taking turns as host nation). They’re not clearly the better of anyone in their pool, and last year’s results, with the Olympics looming, aren’t predictive. So it’s a tough path to walk. But I do say bonne chance, mes amis.