France national handball team

France
Information
Nickname	1992: les « Bronzés » 1993–1996: les « Barjots » 2001–2008: les « Costauds » 2008–: les « Experts »
Association	French Handball Federation
Coach	Claude Onesta
Most caps	Jackson Richardson (417)
Most goals	Jérôme Fernandez (1452)
Colours
File:Kit left arm ffhb14h.png File:Kit body ffhb14h.png File:Kit right arm ffhb14h.png File:Kit shorts ffhb14h.png Home File:Kit left arm ffhb14a.png File:Kit body ffhb14a.png File:Kit right arm ffhb14a.png File:Kit shorts ffhb14a.png Away
Results
Summer Olympics
Appearances	6 (First in 1992)
Best result	1st (2008, 2012)
World Championship
Appearances	20 (First in 1954)
Best result	1st (1995, 2001, 2009, 2011, 2015)
European Championship
Appearances	12 (First in 1994)
Best result	1st (2006, 2010, 2014)
Last updated on Unknown.

France national handball team

Medal record
Olympic Games
	2008 Beijing	Team
	2012 London	Team
	1992 Barcelona	Team
World Championship
	1995 Iceland
	2001 France
	2009 Croatia
	2011 Sweden
	2015 Qatar
	1993 Sweden
	1997 Japan
	2003 Portugal
	2005 Tunisia
European Championship
	2006 Switzerland
	2010 Austria
	2014 Denmark
	2008 Norway

France national handball team is the handball team, supervised by the French Handball Federation, that represents France in international matches. As of February 2015, this team holds the three major titles in its sport (Olympic champion since 2012; European champion since 2014; world champion since 2015). It is the first handball team to have held all three titles twice (the Danish women's team also held all three in 1997), and the only national team in its sport to hold five world titles. France's men handball team is widely regarded as the finest national team in the history of the sport.

Results at international tournaments

Since the 1990s, France has emerged as a major handball team. France won the bronze medal in the 1992 Summer Olympics, giving birth to their first nickname: les Bronzés (meaning tanned in French, a reference both to bronze and to cult French film Les Bronzés). This led to an increased popularity of the sport in France, which was already one of the most popular in primary and secondary schools.

One year after their Olympic medal, les Bronzés reached the final of the 1993 World Championship, which they lost against Russia.

In 1995, France won the World Championship in Iceland, defeating Croatia in the final. The team became known as les Barjots because the players played the final with an extravagant haircut (barjot is a slang word for crazy in French).

The team finished 4th in the 1996 Summer Olympics (France lost the bronze medal game to Spain, whom they had beaten in the first round). France finished third a year later in the 1997 World Championship. The team finished 6th in the 1999 World Championship and in the 2000 Summer Olympics.

France won the world title again in the 2001 World Championship organised in France. During both their quarterfinal and final, against Germany and Sweden respectively, they were one goal behind until a few seconds before the end of the game, but managed to score a late goal and finally win in overtime with a three-goal margin. This great strength of character was cause for their new nickname: les Costauds (the strong, or the tough). Five members of les Costauds had already been world champions in 1995 with les Barjots: Jackson Richardson, Grégory Anquetil, Patrick Cazal, and the goalkeepers Bruno Martini and Christian Gaudin.

The team finished third in the 2003 World Championship. In the 2004 Olympics, the teamed finished 5th. Although they won their five games of the preliminary round, the team went down to an ageing Russian team led by 42-year-old goalkeeper Andrey Lavrov in the quarterfinals (24–26).

In the 2005 World Championship, France finished third again. This was the last international competition played by Jackson Richardson, a veteran from the first team les Bronzés. The retirement of their star meant for the French team the final transition between the early successes and the new generation of players.

In 2006 France won for the first time the European Championship, a competition in which they had never managed to win a medal until then. In the final they overwhelmed Spain, the reigning world champions (31–23), against whom they had lost the opening match in the preliminary round.

In 2008, France finished third in the European Championship. They were undefeated until the semifinal, which they lost to Croatia.

France won the gold medal in the Beijing Olympics. The French players elected to call themselves Les Experts, which is the French title for the TV show CSI in France. The team won the gold medal in the 2008 handball tournament in Beijing, defeating underdogs Iceland in the final (28–23). Thierry Omeyer, Daniel Narcisse and Bertrand Gille were voted into the tournament's All Star team.

France won the world title again in 2009 at the 2009 World Championship, hosted by Croatia, against the organizing country, and the European title in 2010 in Austria, once more against Croatia. As a result, ut became the first men's team to hold the three major titles in the sport (olympic title, world title and European title) simultaneously. (Denmark women's national handball team held all three titles in 1997). It also became the third team to have won all three titles ever, the other two being Germany and Russia.

In the 2011 World Championship, France held its title, winning against Denmark (37–35 after extra time. This victory, in addition to granting an automatic participation to the 2012 Olympics, marked several achievements:

• it became, with Romania, the only handball team (on the men's side) to have successfully defended a world champion status;
• it became (and is the only, so far) the only national handball team in history to have won four major titles in a row;
• three players on the team (Jérôme Fernandez, Thierry Omeyer and Didier Dinart) achieved three world champions titles – putting them on par with Cornel Oţelea from Romania in the 60s (had he been present in 2009, Bertrand Gille would also have been one of them, but he missed 2009 due to injuries).

The 2012 and 2013 years were a mixed bag for the team; after an unexpected setback at the 2012 European championship where the team ended up in 11th place, it went on to be the first national handball team to retain the olympic title at the London Olympic games. In 2013, they ended up being defeated by Croatia in this year's world championship.

2014 saw France regain its European title after losing it in 2012. Of note is that just like in 2009, the team ended up winning the final against the host country.

In 2015, they won their 5th World Champion title against host country Qatar. Thierry Omeyer was elected Most Valuable Player of the tournament; this was the first time in the IHF history that a goalkeeper was elected as an MVP.

Competitive record

     Champions       Runners-up       Third Place       Fourth Place  

Olympic Games

Games	Round	Position	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
1936 Berlin	Did not enter
Not held from 1948 to 1968
1972 Munich	Did not qualify
1976 Montreal
1980 Moscow
1984 Los Angeles
1988 Seoul
1992 Barcelona	Third Place	3rd of 12	7	5	0	2	157	143	+14
1996 Atlanta	Fourth Place	4th of 12	7	4	0	3	190	165	+25
2000 Sydney	Match for 5th place	6th of 12	8	4	1	3	192	182	+10
2004 Athens	Match for 5th place	5th of 12	8	7	0	1	221	176	+45
2008 Beijing	Champions	1st of 12	8	7	1	0	228	185	+43
2012 London	Champions	1st of 12	8	7	0	1	229	175	+54
2016 Rio de Janeiro	Qualified
Total	7/12	2 Titles	46	34	2	10	1,217	1,026	+191

World Championship

Year	Round	Position	GP	W	D	L	GS	GA
1938	Did not qualify
1954	Preliminary Round	6	3	0	1	2	26	61
1958	Did not qualify
1961	Main Round	8	6	1	0	5	42	73
1964	Preliminary Round	9	3	0	0	3	28	58
1967	Did not qualify
1970	Preliminary Round	12	6	1	0	5	80	105
1974	Did not qualify
1978
1982
1986
1990	Second round	9	6	2	1	3	138	138
1993	Runners-up		6	4	0	2	134	131
1995	Champions		9	7	0	2	218	185
1997	Third Place		9	7	0	2	223	206
1999	Quarter-finals	6	9	6	0	3	242	211
2001	Champions		9	9	0	0	233	172
2003	Third Place		10	8	0	2	286	218
2005	Third Place		10	6	2	2	301	240
2007	Fourth Place	4	10	6	0	4	300	243
2009	Champions		10	9	0	1	296	211
2011	Champions		10	9	0	1	327	245
2013	Quarterfinals	6	7	5	0	2	207	182
2015	Champions		9	8	1	0	259	215
2017	Qualified
Total	18/25	5 titles	132	88	5*	39	3340	2894

*Denotes draws include knockout matches decided in a penalty shootout.

European Championship

Year	Round	Position	GP	W	D	L	GS	GA
1994	5th/6th place	6	5	2	1	2	123	120
1996	7th/8th place	7	5	3	0	2	130	120
1998	7th/8th place	7	5	1	1	3	110	125
2000	Fourth place	4	7	4	1	2	173	164
2002	5th/6th place	6	6	3	2	1	152	136
2004	5th/6th place	6	6	3	0	3	163	154
2006	Champions	1	8	7	0	1	243	192
2008	Third Place	3	8	6	0	2	231	207
2010	Champions	1	8	6	2	0	225	196
2012	Main round	11	6	2	1	3	156	163
2014	Champions	1	8	7	0	1	259	227
2016	Qualified
Total	12/12	3 titles	72	44	8*	20	1965	1804

*Denotes draws include knockout matches decided in a penalty shootout.

Team

Current squad

This is the squad for the 2015 World Men's Handball Championship.

Head coach: Claude Onesta

No. Pos. Name Date of birth (age) Height App. Goals Club 1 GK Cyril Dumoulin (1984-02-02) 2 February 1984 2.00 m 38 0 Fenix Toulouse 2 LB Jérôme Fernandez (c) (1977-03-07) 7 March 1977 1.99 m 375 1443 Fenix Toulouse 4 RB Xavier Barachet (1988-11-19) 19 November 1988 1.95 m 66 132 Paris Saint-Germain 7 P Igor Anić (1987-06-12) 12 June 1987 1.94 m 24 31 Nantes 8 CB Daniel Narcisse (1979-12-16) 16 December 1979 1.89 m 264 814 Paris Saint-Germain 9 RW Guillaume Joli (1985-03-27) 27 March 1985 1.78 m 103 293 HSG Wetzlar 10 RB Alix Nyokas (1986-06-28) 28 June 1986 1.88 m 29 44 Frisch Auf Göppingen 11 LW Samuel Honrubia (1986-07-05) 5 July 1986 1.80 m 70 188 Paris Saint-Germain 13 CB Nikola Karabatić (1984-04-11) 11 April 1984 1.96 m 234 964 Paris Saint-Germain 14 LW/CB Kentin Mahé (1991-05-22) 22 May 1991 1.85 m 20 31 HSV Hamburg 15 LB Mathieu Grébille (1991-10-06) 6 October 1991 1.98 m 26 49 Montpellier 16 GK Thierry Omeyer (1976-11-02) 2 November 1976 1.92 m 306 1 Paris Saint-Germain 18 LB William Accambray (1988-04-08) 8 April 1988 1.94 m 73 177 Paris Saint-Germain 20 P Cédric Sorhaindo (1984-06-07) 7 June 1984 1.92 m 129 251 Barcelona 21 LW Michaël Guigou (1982-01-28) 28 January 1982 1.79 m 196 687 Montpellier 22 P Luka Karabatić (1988-04-19) 19 April 1988 2.02 m 23 17 Pays d'Aix UCH 28 RB Valentin Porte (1990-09-07) 7 September 1990 1.90 m 29 57 Fenix Toulouse

2008 Olympic squad

File:Handball podium08.jpg

Gold medalists France collect their medals on 24 August 2008 in Beijing

• 12 Daouda Karaboué (Montpellier HB, France) (goalkeeper)
• 16 Thierry Omeyer (THW Kiel, Germany) (goalkeeper)
• 2 Jérôme Fernandez (Barcelona, Spain)
• 3 Didier Dinart (BM Ciudad Real, Spain)
• 4 Cédric Burdet (Montpellier HB, France)
• 5 Guillaume Gille (HSV Hamburg, Germany)
• 6 Bertrand Gille (HSV Hamburg, Germany)
• 8 Daniel Narcisse (Chambéry Savoie Handball, France)
• 11 Olivier Girault (Paris Handball, France)
• 13 Nikola Karabatić (Montpellier HB, France)
• 14 Christophe Kempe (Toulouse Union Handball, France)
• 18 Joël Abati (Montpellier HB, France)
• 19 Luc Abalo (US Ivry, France)
• 21 Michaël Guigou (Montpellier HB, France)
• 26 Cédric Paty (Chambéry Savoie Handball, France)

Coaches

• Claude Onesta
• Sylvain Nouet

Honours

Olympic Games

• Gold Medal: 2008, 2012
• Bronze Medal: 1992

World Championship

• Winners: 1995, 2001, 2009, 2011, 2015
• Runners-up: 1993
• Third-place: 1997, 2003, 2005

European Championship

• Winners: 2006, 2010, 2014
• Third-place: 2008

Kit suppliers

Since 2002, France's kit are currently supplied by Adidas.

Media Coverage

France's matches are currently televised by Canal+ which will last until 2017.

External links

• Official website
• IHF profile