Serious and efficient

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On Friday night, Paris Saint-Germain Handball kicked off Liqui Moly StarLigue's Round 16. The runaway league leaders, who boast a perfect record in domestic handball this season, started their week of three away games Halle Polyvalente in Istres (Monday they will go to Saran before heading to Zaporozhye next Thursday). Meanwhile the home side are faring less brilliantly this season, just two points clear of the drop zone. However, as Ferran Solé Sala reminded us before the game, favourites cannot afford to take games lightly in our championship.

It was therefore with a lot of respect that Les Rouge et Bleus travelled to Istres. Their start to the match illustrate as much but didn't prevent Adama Keita from firing a quick double to give Paris Saint-Germain Handball the first break of the match (5': 1-3). But as expected, this game would not be won in the very first moments, and it took a save from Vincent Gérard to prevent Istres from catching up (9': 3-4). Our last defender worked hard to parry several potential levellers and give his attacking teammates the time to bed in and carve out another lead (16': 4-9).

Les Violets didn't give up, however, and made up some of their deficit (19': 7-10) before Paris put them on the back foot once more (22': 7-13). The reason? Vincent, as usual, but also his well-marshalled defence. Our rear-guard won numerous possessions that were quickly transformed into razor-sharp counter-attacks. Our goalkeeper even took an opportunity to score himself (27': 9-15). At the break, Paris were in a very comfortable position!

The resumption was a bit trickier for Raul Gonzalez's men. They were confronted by Istres' 'keeper duo of Paris Saint-Germain Handball academy graduate Clément Gaudin and Hugo Bonnat (36': 15-19). Fortunately, the Parisian lead was hefty and when Mathieu Grébille put an end to their goal drought, the capital club could quickly take back control of the match (37': 15-20). Even better, they continued to pile on the pressure and really break clear, with the lead blowing out to +7 (39': 15-22). The last quarter of the game was approaching fast and our players seemed to have done enough to have a calm final stage of the match (44': 18-26).

Even more so when they went to +10 after a Sadou Ntanzi strike (47': 18-28). The Parisian academy once again well represented. On the court, we had Sadou, Baptiste Clay, Léo Plantin and Valentin Bzdynga for Paris, as well as Clément Gaudin for Istres (55': 24-34). They participated in Paris Saint-Germain Handball's fifteenth victory of the Liqui Moly StarLigue season of in. On Monday, Les Rouge et Bleu will have the opportunity to further increase their league lead when they travel to Saran for their rescheduled Round 13 clash, originally slated for December.

(Credits: J. Azouze/PSG)