Year in Review: France start golden season with VNL title

The 2024 season of the French men’s volleyball national team will always be remembered for their historic victory in front of their home fans at the Paris 2024 Games, which made of the Europeans just the third men’s side to successfully defend an Olympic title and the first in almost 40 years to do so.

The journey that culminated with thousands of French supporters singing La Marseillaise, the country’s national anthem, at full force in a packed Paris South Arena 1 at the start of August, however, started a few months earlier, with another trophy, at the Volleyball Nations League 2024.

The VNL 2022 champions, the French entered the 2024 edition determined to regain the title, but also knowing that their end goal was ultimately to be in great shape for the Paris Games a few months later.

Because of that, head coach Andrea Giani heavily rotated the team’s squad during the VNL, in an attempt to both give each of his players some match rhythm and to give him more opportunities to see everyone in action as he had to trim the roster down to 13 players for the Olympics.

Playing close to home in Antalya, Türkiye, in the first week of the Preliminary Phase, the French delivered solid results, beating Bulgaria, the United States and the host country and falling to Slovenia.

“We were missing the identity of the team to get back to our level and play a little bit better,” outside Yacine Louati said after the victory over the Americans. “With the big switch today, it worked well and it’s very important for us. A few of the American players play in France, so we know them. They have a really good level, but that’s American volleyball. So, it was an interesting game. They mostly gave us problems in the second and the third. It was good for us, to keep growing and keep finding our level.”

Some changes were made for Week 2, when the team made the trip to Ottawa, Canada, and the French walked away with three victories, but had to play three-tiebreakers, beating Italy and Argentina and losing to Cuba – they also topped the Netherlands in four sets.

Week 3 took the French to another trip around the world, with the team playing in Manila, the Philippines. Their campaign there started with a surprising upset to Germany, but the French came back to win two of their next three matches, against Iran and Brazil – they lost to Japan.

With the Preliminary Phase concluded with eight wins and four losses, which was good enough to make them advance to the Finals, in Łódź, Poland, the French knew it was time to bring their best game and so they did.

In three consecutive days, they defeated reigning world champions Italy in the quarterfinals, the FIVB World Ranking number one team Poland in the semifinals and tournament sensations Japan, who ranked second in the world, in the gold medal match to show everyone that the team that had dominated the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 was back.

“Japan are always tough opponents,” opposite Jean Patry celebrated after the final. “They are very skilled, extremely patient and they dig everything. We try to be patient when we play them, but it’s always a challenge to remain focused the entire time. Winning the VNL is excellent in our preparation for the Paris Games, which is our main goal for the season. Our goal was to make it to the semifinals, so there’s nothing better than winning gold. We have a lot of guys who can come in and help the team and that’s one of our main strengths.”

France also dominated the tournament’s Dream Team, which had Antoine Brizard as the Most Valuable Player and setter, Patry as the opposite and Nicolas Le Goff as one of the middle blockers. Runners-up Japan – outside hitter Yuki Ishikawa and libero Tomohiro Yamamoto – and third-placed Poland – outside hitter Tomasz Fornal and middle blocker Jakub Kochanowski – had two players each.

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