While the French men’s volleyball team is recognized as one of the best in the world, including a silver medal at this year’s FIVB World League, the French women haven’t had the same level of success. They are just 40th in the current FIVB Senior Women’s World Rankings, and that’s after a 4-spot jump thanks to their first-ever World Grand Prix appearance (where they were 27th overall, 3rd in Group 3).
The French women aren’t qualified to play in the European Championships that begin next week, and so the team’s head coach Felix Andre has already returned to his duties as Ligue A club Venelles Before doing so, though, he took a moment to chat with the French Federation about the summer and what it means to women’s volleyball in France.
“I’m proud of what we have accomplished,” Andre says. His focus was to help the squad build a team atmosphere. “For the players, it was necessary to create the relationships so that they learned to live together and to form a team on the court.”
“They improved through hard work,” Andre said. “We played 4 tournaments, 30 games, including 24 official matches. At the first competition (the TCQM in Portugal), we were not ready to fight, not ready to return to competition mode. At the same time, this first competition checked us and showed us what the international level we were going to face all summer was like. Then we had the European League with 4 wins and 2 losses, a World Grand Prix with 6 wins and no losses, and the Universiade (World Universsity Games) with 3 wins and 3 losses.
“The results have been improving with the work accomplihsed that has materialized on the court, it makes us proud to arrive at these results. The only drawback is our results against European Nations. I have often said that this summer we would be able to confront different styles of competition in different tournament formats than we’re used to playing. Our results against European nations in all 3 competitions is not good. But in the future, we will have to perform in Europe before performing at the world level, although we are aware that the European Continent is the one with the highest level.
2017 was the first year of the Generation 2024 project. This sort of targeted project, often employed in European sports, invests all resources into a very young generation in an effort to push them toward qualifying for a certain competition when they hit their prime. It was successfully employed, for example, at the 2016 European Championships by Iceland.
France’s target is the 2024 Olympic Games – which, if they qualified, would be their first Olympic Games (unless they qualify for Tokyo, which at this point seems unlikely).
“It can be said that year 1 of the Generation 2024 project was successful if I measure against the early season objectives that were to rebuild a France group to compete against a complex and busy schedule,” Andre said. “Having won a medal (bronze a the World Grand Prix group 3), to have been close to the semifinals for the World University Games, as a spotlight on the project these results are very positive. It was really rewarding for the girls to get together with such a diversity of teams, having so many matches, traveling, adventures to live through their sport, that can only enrich them as players and as human beans. It’s a good year to start the project.”
Andre says that he would like to continue on as the head coach of the National Team, though there are still conversations that have to be had with both his club and nation before that can be confirmed.
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