For Montpellier, Sète and Narbonne, the French championship with 13 teams kicks off this weekend

Montpellier se rend à Tours lors de la première journée. Midi Libre – Giacomo Italiano

La Marmara Spikeligue débute vendredi par un match entre Cannes et Saint-Nazaire. Samedi, Montpellier va à Tours (20h) et Narbonne à Poitiers (19h). Exempté de la première journée, Sète recevra Tourcoing le 6 octobre.

The 2024-2025 French championship promises to be particularly exciting. Behind Saint-Nazaire, which will try to defend its title, many teams with long teeth have strengthened.

And the cherry on the cake is that the biggest star of French volleyball Earvin Ngapeth will start the season with Poitiers, making the Vienne club one more candidate for the top of the table. “The championship will be very competitive, believes Loic Le Marrec, Montpellier's coach. There are a lot of good players, the big teams are still there and the smaller ones are progressing.”

In Montpellier, the choice of stability

In this 13-team championship (Nantes-Rezé has not been replaced), MHSC VB is a big name. Winner of the Super Cup last Saturday against Saint-Nazaire (3-2), the Hérault club has bet on a certain form of continuity. Around its key players Nicolas Le Goff, Ezequiel Palacios and Raphaël Corre, Montpellier has kept the Bulgarian point Dimitar Dimitrov and Joris Seddik, the young central (18 years old) who tasted the French team this summer. The recruitment of receiver-attacker Tomas Lopez (Nantes) and libero Corentin Phelut (Saint-Jean-d’Illac) should allow the team to progress.

Arago orphaned by Barrou

For Arago de Sète, the season will start with a few question marks. With Kreek, Deveze, Diop, Zanotti, Beriot, Garcia and Gonzalez gone, the group has been remodeled. Gelinski, De Leon, the two Canadians Elser and Gyimah as well as the libero trained at the club Enzo Lopez will take over. “With the staff, we have targeted players with a physical dimension, declares president Alain Bilicki. It is important now to be competitive at the highest level. These are players who also have a big personality to face a season that will, by definition, be special since we will not be playing at Barrou.”

On six occasions, including on October 6 against Tourcoing, Arago will host Béziers. Two other times in Castelnau-le-Lez. The rest at the Vié gymnasium. “In recent seasons, the final objectives displayed from the start have perhaps put a little too much pressure on the players and the management. So this year, we have set ourselves a first objective: to finish in the top four in the first leg matches, we will make an initial assessment at that time.”

It remains to be seen whether the objective is not too high, given a situation that will see the Sète team travel a lot. Even at home.

In Narbonne, the year 2 of Redwitz

Second to last in the championship last season, Narbonne begins its season with more certainty. After two years in Sète, Lisandro Zanotti is back and the Audois have managed to enlist Luke Herr, the passer of the Canadian national team.

For his second season as coach, former Montpellier player Rafaël Redwitz was able to prepare his team more calmly with the ambition of getting closer to qualifying for the final stages.

The squads

Montpellier: Eliot Coulet, Raphaël Corre, Dimitar Dimitrob, Veikka Lindqvist, Ezequiel Palacios, Nathan Spano, Théo Conré, Tomas Lopez, Ethan Jeanlys, Nicolas Le Goff, Raphaël Pascal, Corentin Phelut.

Sète : Danilo Gelisnki, Pépin Rajoharivelo, Maximiliano Gauna, Daenan Gy imah, Danilo Hrytsenko, Jesse Elser, Hugo De Leon, Tibo Rippert, Enzo Lopez, Mattéo Martino Gauchi, Célestin Cardin, Tristan Schlienger

Narbonne : Luke Herr, Aaro Nikula, Josue Lopez Rios, Lars Migge, Liam Lisandro Z, anotti, Ibrahil Touré, Tanguy-Vianney Dijoud, Twan Wiltenburg, Tomas Ruiz.

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