Nîmes - Paris: The Preview
Handball•
On Friday evening, Paris Saint-Germain Handball open Liqui Moly StarLigue Matchday 21 with a trip south to take on Nîmes at Le Parnasse. Find out all you need to know about this intriguing league fixture.
Almost two months after Euro 2026 for some and AFCON CAN 2026 for Yahia Omar, several Parisians were reunited with their international team last week. While most of them took advantage of the break to play friendly matches, Kamil Syprzak's Poland were playing for qualification for the 2027 World Cup in Germany. Against Latvia, our pivot shone, scoring ten goals over the two games to help his side reach the third qualifying round - the final stage before the main tournament of the World Cup next January.
In this final round, Poland will face Austria in mid-May, and Kamil will be far from the only Parisian trying to secure his ticket to Germany. Luc Steins' Netherlands take on Greece, Simen Lyse's Norway face Turkey, Ferran Solé and Spain have to get the better of Israel, and of course France take on the Czech Republic. This week's international break marked the start of new coach Talant Dujshebaev reign as coach of the French national team. Elohim Prandi and Karl Konan returned from the recent camp with a win and a draw against Spain as their final preparation before the showdown with the Czechs in less than two months' time.
Europe seems to be slipping further and further away for Nîmes. In search of their first continental qualification since 2021, the team from the Gard region lacked consistency in the first half of the season. With six defeats in the first eleven rounds, David Degouy's men quickly fell behind in the race for the top five. However, the start of 2026 was a source of hope for Nîmes. After seeing off Chambéry 24-23 in the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France in Savoie, they followed up with two crucial home wins over Cesson-Rennes (31-28) and Saint-Raphaël (33-27), the current fifth-placed team and the last to qualify for Europe.
Those victories enabled Nîmes to close the gap on their opponents to just three points, but they have since fallen back into their old ways. After defeat in a hard-fought battle in Nantes (36-34), it was the losses to Limoges (28-31) and Tremblay (36-29), two European contenders, that proved tougher to swallow for the Green Team. Now in 11th place, six points shy of the European places, USAM no longer have their fate in their own hands - but they will no doubt be battling it out until the final round.
Twelfth in the top flight, Nîmes are not normally the biggest goalscoring threat. However, Les Rouge et Bleu would be wrong not to take every precaution against the southerners, especially when it comes to Guéric Vincent. With 105 goals to his name, he sits in eighth place on the Liqui Moly StarLigue scorers chart, level with... Yahia Omar! The duel between the Parisian right-back and the Nîmes left-winger promises to be a fascinating one at Le Parnasse this Friday.
The latest round of matches in the Liqui Moly StarLigue features a number of promising clashes between teams with a range of objectives. On top of the Parisians' clash with Nîmes, Montpellier play host to Chartres with the aim of putting the pressure on Nantes, who travel to Aix on Saturday evening. In the race for Europe, Toulouse play host to Limoges on Friday with the aim of closing the five-point gap and regaining their place in the top five.
Meanwhile, Saint-Raphaël have a short trip to make to Istres. A win away to the bottom club would keep SRVHB in fifth place, while pressure is intense from Fenix and Chambéry, who take on Sélestat on Sunday. Tremblay, currently three points adrift of the European qualification places, must avoid slipping on the Breton banana skin against Cesson-Rennes. At the bottom of the table, the clash between thirteenth-placed Dunkerque and Dijon, who sit just inside the relegation zone, could prove decisive, with only three points separating the two teams.
This Liqui Moly StarLigue Matchday 21 fixture between Nîmes and Paris will be broadcast live and exclusively on beIN SPORTS 1 from 20:00.