Edwige key to France’s watertight defence

The reigning Olympic champions had conceded only 35 goals against Romania and North Macedonia in their first two matches at the EHF EURO 2022. After the game against the Netherlands (26:24), France’s number of conceded goals per game registered an uptick, but they are still the only side in the competition to concede less than 60 goals, or an average of 20 goals per game, after the preliminary round.

And it has been a recipe that has worked wonders in the past years. Since 2016, France got three medals at the EHF EURO, two at the World Championship and two at the Olympic Games, winning all three competitions in that space.

But what is the secret behind this unprecedented success for ‘Les Blues’?

“To be honest, I really did not expect us to be so good in defence. Because, in our preparations, when we played two friendly matches against Germany, we conceded a lot of goals. For us, it was huge and I was starting to worry a bit. Things have gotten better when we played against Poland a few days before the start of the EHF EURO,” says line player Béatrice Edwige.

“And when we got here, well… everything clicked at the right time, we have gotten better and better, we got ourself into a rhythm and all is into place, we are very satisfied with how it worked out.”

The reality is that a secret is not really a secret. It is just the design of the system put in place by coach Olivier Krumbholz, who is now in his second stint as a coach for the France women’s national team, after previously managing the side between 1998 and 2013.

Krumbholz, one of the most decorated coaches in the history of handball, has 12 medals at the EHF EURO, the World Championship and the Olympic Games and will step down from the position after the 2024 Olympic Games.

But a system is nothing if the pieces that build it are not good or not fit to play their parts. Here is where Edwige comes in, one of the top defenders in the world, a mainstay in the centre of the defence of every team she plays for and an intelligent player, who has both the know-how and feeling for handball.

“The main thing, which really is crucial for us, is that every girl plays for each other. That is paramount to our system, that is very, very important, because without it, everything crumbles. The system is designed to work irrespective of the opponent, but we do alternate some things if we meet certain teams,” says Edwige.

“For example, against Romania, we knew we had to play at a higher tempo in attack, with fast throw offs, because we could surprise them. But against the Netherlands, if we did that, it would have been suicide. We cannot win high-scoring games, we are not a team designed to do that. If a team scores 30 goals against us, we are basically doomed.”

Edwige’s words may sound like a cliché, but France’s performances in the past six years just remind everybody that handball is a team game, that a single player cannot be decisive time and time again.

For France, that recipe has worked wonders in the past decades, after their emergence at the end of the 1990s, coincidentally exactly when Krumbholz took over the side.

But it is not about the coach, it is also about the system and just how well it works, irrespective of the players that are featuring in it. However, at 34 years old, Edwige is the most experienced player in the current France team and her tactical nous and sheer number of situations she has been in is probably next to none.

“Scrolling through Instagram, I just saw a nice statistic on the EHF EURO official account, underlining how much time does it take a team to finish their attacks. Netherlands were just there, on the top. Therefore, we knew that the tempo needed to be calmed down. Basically, we wanted us to dictate the tempo, to lead the game,” says Edwige.

It really worked wonders, as the Netherlands never took the lead, were always forced to come from behind and that slowly ground them mentally and physically alike until they lost the game, 24:26.

Once again, it was France’s defence that starred, conceding just the precise number of goals that enabled their attack to survive, registering their best-ever start at the EHF EURO, three wins in three matches and a goal difference of +26.

All of this without two of France’s top goalkeepers in the last decade, Amandine Leynaud, who retired and is now the goalkeeping coach of the team, and Laura Glauser, who got injured just before the start of the EHF EURO 2022.

This meant that Cleopatre Darleux and Floriane Andre were the two goalkeepers France were going to rely upon, with the latter making her debut at a major tournament.

"Olivier [Krumbholz] has his style with the goalkeepers, irrespective of the names they are playing. And it is working. Cleopatre was superb, Floriane was also very, very good, because we need their saves, whenever they are facing the wings and the line players, these are one-on-one situations. They need to play the same and we have a good chance of going far in the tournament,” says Edwige.

Indeed, Darleux saved 29 shots – the fourth largest number in the competition – and has the second best saving efficiency, 46.7%, after three matches, duly delivering whenever she was needed the most.

But, as Edwige said, it is not about the performance of a single player, even if it is the goalkeeper. No, it is about the system, one that has been tested time and time again and it always delivered.

One that brought France here, one of the favourites for the EHF EURO and the same that made North Macedonia’s coach, Ljubomir Savevski, emphatically say that this is France’s best team ever.

With the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on the horizon, things are looking good, also for Krumbholz’s swansong and legacy.