After achieving their best-ever World Championship result in Doha with fourth, the French men's water polo team are keen to show the world on the highest platform that they deserve their place in the world's top four. The French team kicks off the Olympics in their home pool with incredible hype - a few days before the Olympics, we asked the head coaches how Les Blues' preparations are going.
Competing at the Olympics in a home pool has both advantages and disadvantages. An extra for the home team is that there is a huge fan base behind the team, cheering them on and sometimes it means an extra player in the water. On the other hand, it can be very stressful, as many fans expect their team to show their best, and they get even more attention.
The French team tuned up for the Olympics with their best-ever World Aquatics Championships finish, fourth place in Doha. This gave the team incredible confidence and motivation, especially after beating the Hungarians, the World Champions from Fukuoka, in the Quarter-final.
After a long preparation, the French team began fine-tuning a few days before the start of the Olympics, as Florian Bruzzo, the head coach of Team France, says: “It was a very long preparation for us, but nowadays it seems to me it’s going in the right way. The players are committed.”
Les Blues assistant coach Vjekoslav Kobescak says they are focusing on the result and not the stress or hype surrounding them: "We played against Australia in front of our fans at the end of June and it was amazing! The atmosphere was great and I hope it will be the same or even better at the Olympics. We just have to stay calm and concentrate on our job.”
The big question is, what is your biggest challenge? Bruzzo says it's dealing with the pressure: "It's resisting the pressure that we could put on ourselves because we want to represent our country at the highest level with the best performance. So it's a fight against ourselves and to give the maximum in every game, while staying relaxed.”
The Olympics starts for the French men’s water polo team on July 28th with the rematch of the World Championships’ Quarter-final (France vs. Hungary), when in the last two quarters, they performed magic in the water with great performances in both defense and offense. In the Hungarian qualifying tournament on Margaret Island, they lost against Hungary by PSO, defeated by Japan by one goal and to Italy by three goals, but Florian Bruzzo was never dissatisfied with his team.
The World Championship was a great success for the French, the question is whether they can do the same in Paris. As we know, the differences between the teams are extremely small, so only the daily performance can decide. Even Florian Bruzzo does not know what to predict: "If you can predict the final result of the men's water polo tournament at the Olympic Games, you must also know the lottery numbers, so please tell me the numbers!