Euro 2024 handball: record attendance in sight in Düssedorf for France – North Macedonia

La Spiel-Arena dans sa version handball pourra accueillir quelque 50000 fans. MAXPPP – Tom Weller

Plus de 50000 spectateurs devraient assister à l'entrée en lice de l'équipe de France de handball à l'Euro face à la Macédoine du Nord mercredi (18h00) dans la Spiel-Arena de Düsseldorf.

More than 50,000 spectators are expected to attend the debut of the French handball team at the Euro against North Macedonia on Wednesday (6 p.m.) in the Spiel-Arena in Düsseldorf , an unprecedented attendance in the history of this sport.

The current record dates from 2014 during a German championship match between Rhein-Neckar and Hamburg, with 44,189 people in the stands. Organized in a football stadium reconfigured for the occasion, the Blues match should exceed this mark for a record a priori short-lived since Germany, host country of Euro-2024 , will immediately face Switzerland at the same place (8:30 p.m.).

It remains to be seen whether there will be enough of them from the French curtain-raiser meeting for this first match to go down in history. The capacity of the Spiel-Arena, the usual venue of Fortuna Düsseldorf, a football club playing in the 2nd division, is 53,586 spectators.

"Another dimension" for handball

In Düsseldorf, some 25 kilometers of cable and 9,000 additional seats were installed to transform the football stadium into a one-day handball arena. "It's a place and a place that takes our sport to another dimension", breathes the French coach Guillaume Gille, himself a former Hamburg player (2002-2012).< /p>

"The venue has the characteristics of an indoor room. Air masses are not moving. It's very nice here while it's freezing outside." "We're not used to playing in big venues like that”, admits Dika Mem. Enough to destabilize the Blues ?

The handball players have never lost against North Macedonia (three victories). And the most famous of the Macedonians, Kiril Lazarov, now only occupies the bench, retired from the floor and no longer a player-selector as during the last Euro.

Best scorer in the history of the Champions League (1,482 goals), the former Nantes player is also the best director in a single Euro (61) as well as a single World Cup (92). ).