Julien Bos: “MOTW against Aalborg is like a play-off game for us”

The 2024/25 season has been one hell of a journey for Julien Bos so far.

While his first season in Nantes – the club he joined in 2023 after seven years in Montpellier – was promising, his second one has seen him reach heights he had only been dreaming of.

“It’s fantastic, but I am not that surprised, either,” the right back says. “Of course, it’s great to be playing at this level, but I guess that it took me one year to really settle in my new club. When your teammates are so kind to you and that you connect on the court, only good things happen.”

And Bos has now forged strong friendships with some of his teammates: “Thibaud Briet or Aymeric Minne are people that I hang out with a lot. And it makes it easier to connect on the court when you are good buddies in real life as well.”

The 26-year-old Bos arrived at HBC Nantes from French league rivals Montpellier Handball prior to the 2023/24 season. He had made his EHF Champions League debut already in 2016/17 but wasn’t part of the all-French final in 2018 when Montpellier defeated Nantes to the title.

This season, Bos is Nantes’ third-best scorer with 48 goals – only centre back Aymeric Minne, who is injured and will miss the MOTW, and left wing Valero Rivera have scored more.

Bos also enjoyed his first major competition with the Franch national team in January. At the IHF World Championship, he played on the wing rather than on his beloved back-court position but still contributed to France’s run to the bronze medal.

“It was a crazy first experience. Of course, we would have wanted more, but the bronze medal, for my first competition, is already a great achievement,” he says.

In the EHF Champions League, Bos picked up where he left when the group phase resumed last month for the final four rounds.

“I know some of my teammates feel that their legs are sore, but I am fine,” he says. “Maybe the excitement helps as well. But I would rather play than train anyway, so I guess that every three days fits my body rather well.”

And this is not exactly bad news for HBC Nantes, since they have lost some of their key players over the last weeks due to injury, also including Rok Ovnicek and Lucas de La Bretèche.

They will all have to sit out the MOTW against Aalborg Håndbold on Wednesday (live on EHFTV at 20:45 CET).

The Danish side are second in group B with 17 points, one ahead of Nantes. The winner on Wednesday – or, in case of a draw: Aalborg – will join already-qualified group winners Barça into the quarter-finals directly.

“This game really is like a play-off game for us. If we win, we are in the quarter-finals already, which would be nice. I think we could all do with two days off in the spring,” says Bos, referring to the play-offs for the teams that finish the group on the positions third through sixth.

An important factor in the MOTW will be Nantes’ legendary legion of fans.

“They are recognised as some of the best fans in whole Europe. I played against them (with Montpellier) a couple of years ago, and I could really feel their impact on the game,” Bos says.

“But now that I play for Nantes, that they push us in the key moments of the game, I can really feel the boost of energy they give us.”

Aalborg won the reverse fixture in Denmark 38:31 at the start of the group phase last September. Even when Nantes would again not beat Aalborg, Bos finds that his team’s group phase journey is a success.

The beat the likes of OTP Bank - PICK Szeged, Industria Kielce, and SC Magdeburg, and earned a draw against defending champions Barça.

“We only wanted to qualify for the play-offs, and now we are in the position to make it to the quarter-finals directly,” Bos says. “Let’s be humble to admit that this was not the first plan.”

photos © Titt Melhuus (main), HBC Nantes (in-text)