Gérard crosses his fingers
Operated last Friday for pubalgia, Vincent Gérard, before thinking about the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, initially hopes to be able to participate in the Euro in Germany with the Blues. The Kiel goalkeeper knows that the timing promises to be very tight, but he keeps his fingers crossed nonetheless.
Transferred to Kiel this summer, Vincent Gérard (36 years old) could compete on lands he knows well now for his last Euro with the French team. It is in fact in Germany that this European Championship will take place, from January 10 to 28. A meeting on which the Blues goalkeeper thought he would have to draw a line when injured in the adductors, he learned that he had to have surgery for pubalgia. The operation (which lasted almost an hour) took place last Friday – “Doctor Reboul rebuilt my adductors and the abdominal wall”, explains Gérard on the site of The team – and the former PSG goalkeeper has regained hope of participating in the Euro. Even if he knows that the timing promises to be very tight. In his case, we can even talk about a race against the clock, less than four months before D-Day. “The first match of the Euro is January 10, that still leaves almost four weeks (after its resumption ). It seems doable to me. In any case, it allows me to have a real objective,” admits the French international with 150 caps, without hiding that he is especially looking forward to no longer suffering.
Gérard: “If I can’t come back, it’s sport”
“I hope to no longer have pain, above all, to be able to think only about handball because I had been thinking half pain, half handball for over a year. » If, as Doctor Reboul announced to him, Gérard can play at a high level again on December 15, he should therefore be able to be part of this Euro. Also with the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in mind next summer, which could mark his farewell to the selection. Knowing that the Northerner experienced “a point where (he could) no longer play”, he nevertheless prefers not to plan ahead. Especially since nothing guarantees today that he will return to the level which made him the best goalkeeper on the planet for many years. “If I can’t come back (he’s 36), it’s sport. It doesn’t worry me that much,” nevertheless confides the Olympic champion, world champion in 2017 and European champion in 2014, while recalling that “there is still a lot of time before the Olympics. »
