Dika Mem returns to the French courts this Thursday evening, in the Handball Champions League with FC Barcelona in the Nantes arena (8:45 p.m.). For L’Équipe, the French international looks back for the first time on the rotten summer experienced with the Blues, marked by an elimination in the quarter-finals of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games against Germany (34-35, ap) on a loss of the ball on his part six seconds from the end of regulation time which weighed heavily on the final scenario. An action that the left-hander confides having reviewed “50,000 times”
“It was a waste of the ball that I made at a very bad moment, which I take one hundred percent responsibility for,” explains the right-back. If I hadn’t lost the ball, we probably would have won the match. When I think back, what would I have changed? A better pass, but above all better communication with my teammates. » The Barcelonan recalls in particular the time out which preceded the fateful loss of the ball and a muscular exchange with Hugo Descat.
Dika Mem adds to her regrets a poorly negotiated extension – “I was no longer lucid, I was on the pitch, but my head was still connected to the loss of the ball” – despite her activity on the pitch. The 27-year-old also discusses the insults and hate messages received on social networks which, he says, did not reach him.
The good news is that Dika Mem specifies that morale is better after a “complicated” period. “Now, I think I have managed to get over that,” he says, adding his next objective with the French team: the final four at the World Cup, scheduled for January 14 to February 2 in Croatia. Denmark and Norway.
