Olivier Paquereau, a journalist working for the website l’Equipe.fr, took advantage of the time spent by the French National Team in Paris to question Nikola on different stages of the big international competitions. Here is the interview:

«"One desire: to explode on the court"

What happens in the head? Nikola Karabatic, Kiel´s and French National Team´s playmaker, helps us to imagine the moments before, during and after a handball game.

The days before the game: "Pleased to be there"

"The days before the game I am not in the atmopshere of the match yet. A day earlier also not, it is too soon. Surely that when the match comes closer, the pressure begins a little bit to increase. But being in the hotel, I try to relax, to not think about it. It is useless to let the pressure grow up. I do it so imn order to take advantage of the voyage and to be pleased to be there."

The night before the game: "Rejecting the images of the game"

"It is generally difficult to sleep good, especially before a big clash, such as a World Championships semifinal or a Champions League´s final. I go to bed and I watch a film on my laptop. Generally, I don´t sleep a lot. I close my eyes before midnight, 1 o´clock. The game next day comes around my mind, but I try not to think about it and to reject the images. But it depends on the matches to come, this can work very well or not at all."

The morning before the game: "Focused on training"

"We have together breakfast und there is often a training session who follows. In that moment, I am still not in the game. The day is split in two due to the training session. I concentrate and I prepare myself for this. But after the shower and the come back to the hotel, the tension go up. I pervade it a bit more and I try to see how it will be. I don´t like to lock myself too fast in my mind. I prefere to joke, to be loquacious and also to make other things in order to forget that it will be a game in the afternoon. Everyone in the team has his own functioning. It is normal in a team sport. They are a lot of individualities, but this is not a problem. I understand that others want to remain silent."

The last hours: "I´m not the best pal"

"I don´t like the two hours before the match. If I could, I would like to start to play directly without warming up. These two hours are long and stressful moments. When we drive in the bus to the hall, I am silent, I like a lot to back out thinking at the game and the opponent. Before the game I never listen to music, I watch the landscape, I try to focus myself. My colleagues are allowed to come and talk to me, but if someone comes to make jokes and to laugh, I am not the best pal for it."

The warming up: "Boring"

"The warming up, it is OK, it runs fastly. But it is a sh..., because we make always the same. We have between seventy and eighty games in a year and we must warm up between seventy and eighty games in a year. This is boring. In the club team, within an hour before the game, the coach has a speech of fifteen, twenty minutes and during it he repeats us the characteristics of the rival squad. We analyse their attack, we remember their moves and how we have to react. In the French National Team we don´t have this. But is is important to adjust ourselves, to remind us the things we have to do. The pressure is there from the moment we get off the bus and until the kick off. There is the fear to perform badly and to not be at your level. And I have only one desire: to explode on the court."

The game: "I feel the soil"

"It not really the first ball the most important. From the kick off I feel myself well because the action starts, I touch the ball, I feel the soil and the opponent, too. I try to go directly into the issue. If I am in the defence, I will try to have two, three contacts, to increase the level of aggressiveness. And the same is available for the attack. I am from the very beginning there. I don´t look for the first ball to shot. There are no superstitions at this level. After it, it is all about the history of the match, there happen a lot of tricks, it belongs to every dispute. I give my best. I interact with the public, I motivate my teammates. You must be there and give everything for your team. The one and only aim: to win. A game is always a moment of pleasure. Once the game began, it is all about the happiness. When the public is on your side, this can motivate you. You score and you see the spectators standing up, interacting with you, it is very important, this gives you a lot of adrenalin, it makes you stronger. And because the hall has echo, the public is very important and we can feel the atmosphere. And when the public is against you and booes you, that can also make you stronger. The worst is when there is no public at all."

The final whistle: "The liberation"

"The final whistle brings you relief and the joy of the victory. You see your work accomplished, your teammates are around you, they are happy because they won. It is not the most beautiful moment of the game, but it is a success. It is about a team sport, everyone plays together and it is beautiful to see in the end the players and the coach satisfeid. After it, everyome makes his individual analyse, everyone knows clearly what he did well and what he did wrong. In Kiel the coach doesn´t make immediately the analyse, but only before the following workout. In the National Team there is a reunion in the evening after the game, but we don´t make comments right away because that implies to watch again the game, to think again about everything."

The evening: "Difficult to manage"

"It is not easy to make the transition. Once the game is over, you know that within 24 hours you´ll play again. You have to go back to hotel, to eat, to stretch, thee are some things you have to care about and you must succeed to sleep. But we can´t fall so easy to sleep because the excitation of the match is still there. If you haven´t performed well, than it is worse because you would think at the action you have done wrong and the goals you haven´t scored. If I can´t slep well and next day it will be a game, it will be difficult to manage."

The following week: "We don´t disconnect"

"After a competition with the National Team, we need more repose. At the European Championships in Norway we played eight games in eleven days. Than, I had five days to have a rest and I started again playing a super important game in the Bundesliga. Actually, we are not allowed to disconnect and we have to question us immediately about this. It is really hard. You have to be mentally very strong. You have to recharge the batteries, to find a new style of playing, a new way to train, other players. It is a delicate isue." »