Toulouse. Fenix handball will play the biggest European Cup game in its history
By Anthony Assemat
Published on
Will the day of glory come for Toulouse handball? Tuesday, March 29, 2022, the Fenix will play an 8and in the first leg of the European Cup, the EHF – the equivalent of the Europa League in football – faces the Portuguese from Benfica Lisbon. A historic event for the club, which had experienced the final stages of the 3and European Cup in the late 90s.
Final Four Goal
“We will need maximum popular pressure! “. Philippe Dallard, the president of Fenix, can’t wait to be on March 29 to get drunk on this new flavor of the European finals. ” This is the second year in a row that we are contesting the European Cup and we came out of the pools brilliantly this season, ”rejoices the club boss, who aims to reach the quarter-finals and even the Final Four, i.e. the semi-final level.
“Opposite, Benfica has a budget twice as large as ours and a large workforce. We have nothing to lose and want to beat this team. We are going to fight like dogs, ”adds Danijel Andjelkovic, the Toulouse coach.
“Making a robbery without a balaclava”
In the opinion of observers and the club, Benfica is one of the favorites in the competition, along with Nantes and a few German clubs. “We are going to try to make a robbery without a hood”, even metaphorizes Philippe Dallard.
Recruits, extensions… What workforce next season?
This exciting end to the 2021-2022 season does not prevent Fenix from preparing for the future. President Philippe Dallard has been working on this for several weeks. For the workforce of the 2022-2023 season, there is a key word: stability.
Several team executives have extended their contracts such as the manager Pierrick Chelle (2023), left-back Gonçalo Vieira (2024), Ayoub Abdi (2024) and Belgian goalkeeper Jeff Lettens (2025). “Lettens is the best in France, he is a group executive and I hope he will finish his career in Toulouse”, welcomes Philippe Dallard.
To support the Belgian, the Fenix has bet next season on the Slovak Teodor Paul, 34. A solid pair in the cages. This is the only Toulouse rookie, the Fenix keeping its backbone (Ilic, Balenciaga, Pettersson…).
Three young players have also signed their first professional contract: Romain Giraudeau, Téo Jarry and Matthieu Marmier. “These young people who push at the doors, it’s good. We had a hole in the racket on training in recent years, ”explains Philippe Dallard.
Finally, the Fenix is working with Toulouse Métropole on the modernization project for the sports hall, a project of which you have already been given the outline on Actu Toulouse.
In the race in the European Cup, in the championship and in the French Cup
Before switching to this event – the club hopes to fill the sports hall – the Fenix must also remain focused on the championship. Especially since the European course generates an insane calendar: the handball players of the Pink City have thus played more than 35 games since the start of the seasonphysically and mentally burdensome.
But we must not flinch in the final sprint because the Toulouse people are actually running three hares at a time. In Liqui Moly Starligue, the name of the first division handball championship, Andjelkovic’s players tip at 5and place after their last victories in Nancy and Istres. In the Coupe de France, the Fenix is still in the race and will face Saint-Raphaël in the quarter-finals. “We are in our place even if we are not missing much to reach the top”, estimates Philippe Dallard, the PSG being out of reach with its stars and its budget, while the trio Nantes, Aix-en- Provence and Montpellier also appear better armed.
A passionate end to the season
As such, the end of the season promises to be exciting with Paris, Aix and Nantes on the menu for the last three days of the season, at the start of June 2022. The club will also set up a Village, from 1uh to June 4, on the forecourt of the sports hall for the reception of Parisians and Aixois. Entertainment will be organised.
In the meantime, the Fenix sets itself on Portuguese time and on its 31 on March 29. To prolong the party and mark history a little more.
Info and tickets at fenix-toulouse.fr.
With “Picou”, the Fenix can count on his taulier
Fenix Handball right winger Pierrick Chelle, nicknamed “Picou”, is the former locker room. At the club since 2004, he is preparing to live, thanks to the European Cup, one of his best moments with the Toulouse jersey.
At 33 (he will have them in December 2022), the Fenix right winger is the captain, the former, the solid shoulder, the locker room manager. The lexical field in the matter would not be enough.
At the sports hall, Chelle, it’s “Picou”. In a professional world where players go from club to club like grasshoppers, he has not failed in his loyalty to Fenix. “I arrived in 2004 as a young person, I was 14! And I signed my first pro contract in 2010,” he recalls. For him, without a doubt, this 2021-2022 season “is the richest and most interesting. We don’t have the best team on paper, but we have a real collective strength”.
This shock against Benfica, he is impatiently awaiting it against “one of the favorites of this EHF European Cup. We feel, inside the club, that a big event is about to happen. It’s rewarding for us, ”continues the one who believes that the French championship is the second most important after Germany.
Respected by the whole group, vigilant about the behavior and the cohesion of the team – “I try to give a place to each player” – Pierrick Chelle has extended his contract for one season, until 2023. “All the years, we continue for a year! “, smiles the president of Fenix, Philippe Dallard. “If I extend it is that the club is satisfied. I’m not cheating,” says the player, who concedes that the season is “dense and tiring” with already more than 35 games played by the club between the European Cup and the Liqui Moly Starligue.
Chelle, he is one of the regulars of the band, with more than 20 games played on average per season. And the “old man” is still in the canes: during the last league match at the red lantern Nancy, he scored six goals on six shots attempted!
Alongside his performance in the field, Pierrick Chelle is working on his retraining with an in-house project on image development and sales.
Even when his career is over, our little finger tells us that his story with Fenix Handball is not about to end.
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