Dujshebaev to lead France national team after Gille quits

Days have been long in the past couple of weeks at the Maison du Handball in Créteil. Two years after winning gold at the Men’s EHF EURO 2024, France started the 2026 edition as the defending champions but returned from Herning with a disappointing seventh place.

“Clearly not the result we wanted,” said head coach Guillaume Gille, who took a few weeks to consider his future.

Ultimately, the former centre back decided to step down from his position — and he will be replaced by Talant Dujshebaev, the Spanish head coach of Polish Machineseeker EHF Champions League contenders Industria Kielce.

"The national team has been my daily bread for the past 30 years"

Gille, who also led France to Olympic gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021, said “the national team has been my daily bread for the past 30 years, since my first international game in 1996. To have been through so many adventures and missions is just crazy.

“I’m completely aware that I was not able to guide my team to success at the EURO. That guided me to so many questions. And with all the love that I have for this jersey, the respect that I owe to this institution, you just can’t cheat when you are talking about the France national team.”

Overall, Guillaume Gille’s journey as head coach of the France national team is a successful one. Apart from the Olympic and EHF EURO gold, he led the team to silver at the EHF EURO 2022 and bronze at the 2025 IHF World Championship.

“I know how much the national team owe to Guillaume, as he took the wheel of the team when it was in shambles in 2020,” said Philippe Bana, President of the French Handball Federation.

Bana and other federation executives took the time for analysis during the past month to be ready to move on with another head coach.

“We made a list of three or four names, and we all thought that Talant Dujshebaev was our No. 1 on that list,” Bana said. “When I first talked to him on the phone, he reminded me that he had called his son Daniel in honour of [French former coaching great] Daniel Costantini. He also spoke about the honour to coach this team, how it belonged to the top, and how he was really motivated by the challenge.”

Talant Dujshebaev is the only coach to have won the EHF Champions League four times — three with Ciudad Real (2006, 2008, 2009) and one with Kielce (2016). He also won the most coveted trophy in European club handball as a player, in 1994.

He has previous experience in leading a national team from his stints with Hungary (2014-16) and Poland (2016-17).

Dujshebaev will first lead France in two friendlies against Spain

“Coaching France is something that I wanted more than anything else, given how good their current generation of players is,” Dujshebaev said.

“My goal with these players is to win everything, to beat again Germany, Denmark… I’m very proud that my profile caught the eye of the French federation, and even more proud that I was chosen.”

Interestingly, Dujshebaev will first be on the French bench for two upcoming friendly games against Spain, whose squad includes his sons, Alex and Dani.

Dujshebaev's first competitive matches with France are in mid-May, when the team play a two-leg play-off against Czechia for a ticket to the 2027 IHF World Championship.

main image © Roland Peka