The 1998-99 French generation came into the 2019 IHF Men’s Junior World Championship with pressure and expectations on their young shoulders after reaching all major finals in their category over the past few years, including the U18 EHF EURO 2016, IHF Men’s Youth World Championship in 2017, and the U20 EHF EURO last year in Slovenia.

No doubt part of that pressure and expectation has come from the tightly-knit group of players under coach Johann Delattre’s tutelage themselves, but now, they are one step away from reaching yet another final, with the strength of the unbeaten Egyptians standing in their way in the semi-final later today.

Egypt know how to beat France though as they did it earlier this week, winning 37:32 on Monday evening. This was France’s second defeat in two matchdays, having lost 27:23 to Sweden in their previous preliminary clash. 

Despite these two defeats, France qualified through to the eighth-finals thanks to wins over Nigeria (48:19), Korea (46:32) and Australia (50:11) and their campaign really got started with a come-from-behind win against Spain in the eighth-finals (24:23) and then another goal chase, against Denmark, winning 35:32 in a tense quarter-final last time out.

“I don’t know, the past is the past,” said France’s captain Jonathan Mapu to IHF.info about whether he thought that those somewhat surprising group losses had brought his team closer together.

“Maybe, if we had won our five games, including the Sweden and Egypt ones, it would still be the same [feeling] because when you finish the preliminary group and then go into the eighth-finals and quarter-finals, it’s the same: if you lose you go home.

“I don’t if our spirit would have been the same if we had won against Sweden or Egypt, but we have these games now, are happy to be in the semi-final and our spirit is good.”

Against Denmark, France were behind at half-time (16:14) and entered the last 10 minutes with a deficit too (28:27), but a 7:1 run put them 34:29 up with two minutes left and the game to bed.

It meant that Mapu’s side had won for the fourth consecutive time against the Danes at a major competition, following their 31:30 win in Slovenia last year and two victories in Georgia, in the group stage (35:26) and semi-final (35:27). 

But despite the past victories, Mapu said his squad paid little attention to what has happened historically, instead, wanting to focus on the here and now and how his squad have grown together during Spain 2019.

“It’s the past,” said the Saint Raphael Handball line player. “The teams from Slovenia and Georgia, including Denmark, have changed. All the teams have become stronger and us too; they do not have the same players or the same teams, and it doesn’t matter if we won in Georgia or Slovenia.

“When you play a lot of games like these [at Spain 2019] your team spirit is good and your team is good,” he added. “We are in good spirits and had a good feeling before the game against Denmark and after the game when we beat Spain.

“For Denmark, we knew it was a very difficult game, but our spirit was clear - we are handball players and we want to win each game.”

Mapu, who has scored 18 times in the seven games he has played in at Spain 2019, is a vocal and physical presence on court for his teammates, who thrive off of his energy and encouragement, and he is quick to point out that the semi-final clash against Egypt is a different scenario to the match played in the preliminary group.

“The game is very long, 60 minutes, and we need to stay focussed because when we play a team like Denmark in the quarter-finals we know it is going to be very difficult,” said Mapu about his responsibilities on court. 

“Sometimes you are down and sometimes you are up, but you need to stay focussed and we know that playing games right into the last minute it’s [about] the details. Against Denmark their players made some turnovers, so we played on the fast-break and scored.

“It is difficult every time when we play against Egypt,” continued Mapu. “When we lost to them in the preliminary group maybe we weren’t ready for them. They were stronger than us in that, but now we play them in the semi-final and it’s another game - it’s a new day, a different game; it’s a semi-final at a world championship, so let’s play.”

With nearly 500,000 viewers watching their match against Spain live on TV back in France and many more on the internet, Mapu, whose father is from the atoll of Fangatau, Tuamotu in French Polynesia, has a final message for France’s supporters around the globe.

“I just want to say thank-you to everyone watching and supporting us,” said the 21-year-old. “For everyone who can’t be here in Spain, like my parents, the TV (and internet) allows people to watch and support us and it gives us all pleasure to know this – it’s a wonderful feeling.”