"There are so many questions to answer" says Benjamin Gille
At the beginning of the week, Grégoire Detrez, Chambéry's pivot, told the press that his team did not care about the VELUX EHF Champions League anymore. It was meant to be ironic.
Sadly, when you saw the French team on the court against Velenje, you might have asked yourself if they had not decided to throw the game out the window.
"What can you do when you start a game in such a bad way? We had lost it twenty minutes after the start, just because Velenje wanted the victory more than us.
“They jumped on every ball they could and we lost every ball we tried to play" said Cyril Dumoulin to French TV.
"Every Champions League game seems to have the same pattern for us" said Guillaume Gille on French TV after the game.
Chambéry usually start pretty slowly, losing balls and giving their opponents fastbreak opportunities, which they do not often miss.
Yesterday, the Slovenians led by ten goals after just twenty minutes. When they realised they had to wake up, it was too late and the opposition was well ahead of them.
The only consolation for Chambéry this season is the level of their two goalkeepers, Nebojsa Grahovac prevented Chambéry from suffering a much heavier defeat.
"We missed a lot of everything, everywhere. We lack focus, mentally we are weak, we do not score in the important moments of the game.
“We deserve our sixth place in the group. We cannot even blame the injured players anymore" said Cedric Paty.
Paty is right, since all the players but Kevynn Nyokas were back in the game yesterday. His teammate Benjamin Gille added "Either we are not aware of the luck we have to play in this competition, or we are not good enough for the Champions League.
“I wish I could answer this question. There are so many questions to answer actually".
Sadly, the lack of experience of some players (like Marko Panic and Thimothey Nguessan), the tiredness of others (the Gille brothers) and something else that no-one could explain meant Chambéry lost another VELUX EHF Champions League game yesterday, this one by a big margin of 31:20.
Once again, they played against a team that was probably not a lot better than them. But Velenje entered the court with much more determination, as you could see on Ivan Gajic's face after each of his many saves.
Really, the problem is in Chambéry's camp. They have got five games to show to everybody that they have the ability to compete at this level, just like they do in the French league, where they are in second place at the moment.
Everybody would be tempted to say that Saint Petersburg and Silkeborg could be defeated at Le Phare, which not long ago was a venue a lot of European players were scared to visit. But this year, with Chambéry, you never know.
The next game will take place in Slovenia. It is, as Mario Cavalli said in L'Equipe "our last chance. As silly as it sounds, we are capable of playing very well over there. We lack regularity and we are a little bit tired as well."
TEXT: Kevin Domas / cor
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