Narbonne Volley: a match to change the course of history!

How do you recognize a game that counts? First to this important expectation. With you, with us, we have all seen, read, heard people who were looking to get a place this week. In writing, for example, a question has been ringing in our ears for a few days. “Do you have any left?” The answer is categorical. This is “non”. Seats ? There is none left. And this Tuesday evening, the Arena’s ticket offices will be closed. A first this season.

Spectators are not mistaken and have no question of sulking their pleasure. Right from the start, they stormed the club’s electronic ticket office, which didn’t need much communication to sell its 3,600 tickets. This is the maximum at the Arena in its volleyball configuration. There will be noise, music, entertainment!

More than a match that counts, this return match against the Turks of Ankara in the final of the Challenge Cup, the third European competition, is a match that could make Narbonne enter the history of volleyball. The local authorities have had a hollow nose, by deploying two banners of support at strategic places in the city (media library and town hall) and by setting up, if the weather permits, a giant screen on the town hall square. , this Tuesday evening. If it is a pity not to have done all this during another final, of another club in the city, last May, we can only rejoice at such enthusiasm.

Whatever happens, Narbonne Volley will have succeeded

Ankara, let’s talk about it. This major club in the country’s capital is a real backbone of the Turkish national team. He is reinforced by the sharp Cuban left-hander Fernando Hernandez, author of 15 points in the first leg, whom the Narbonnais will have to muzzle this Tuesday evening, the only solution to shake up this armada. A real winning, crushing machine, Ankara has impressive statistics: 36 victories in 35 matches in all competitions, 18 consecutive victories, including the last, in the league, on Saturday, 3-2. Their last loss dates back to December 24, 2021 in the Turkish Cup quarter-final against Izmir.

In other words, a victory for Narbonne on Tuesday evening, which was swept away in the first leg in front of 5,000 raging Turks, is akin to a small feat, which is of course possible for the Centurions. After all, impossible is not Narbonne! Playing a return match at home is an opportunity that President Jérémie Ribourel’s players should not underestimate. Taken by the enthusiasm of 5,000 Turks sometimes a little too nervous in the first leg, the Narbonnais will now find themselves in the position of the hunter, with the Arena behind them. How will Ankara behave in a hostile room? That’s the whole point of this return final.

Remember that to lift the cup, Narbonne Volley will have to bring their audience to the end of the night, in a 15-point golden set, like the one disputed against Ljubljana, in the semi-finals. The fans are waiting for that. To be transported in a whirlwind of pleasure and in a jubilation that we imagine incandescent.

Whatever happens on Tuesday, Narbonne Volley will have succeeded. But for this one to turn into a stroke of genius, he only has one match left to change the course of a pretty fairy tale.

–