Odriozola: “Playing Barça in front of 10,000 fans is a dream”
Moving out of your country for the first time, as well as changing clubs, can be a little bit frightening for a young player.
“I was a bit worried, to be honest,” admits Spanish right wing Kauldi Odriozola. Odriozola, who won silver with Spain at the last EHF EURO, moved from Irun, the club had he played all his professional career with, to Nantes last summer.
“I did not know if I would be able to adapt on so many levels. The city, the language, the culture, the sports side of things as well. It felt like there were so many things I did not know,” recalls the 26-year-old. To keep his mind at peace, he made a couple of calls to Valero Rivera, the Spanish captain of Nantes.
“He told me to relax, that everything was great here. And that there were a lot of Spanish players to help me if needed.”
Watching Odriozola now, running up and down the right wing, it is clear that he should not have worried about his ability to adapt. In the Machineseeker EHF Champions League, the left-hander has already scored 32 goals, including a season high of seven against THW Kiel in October. He could well be on track to match his career-high of 48, set with Irun in 2019/20.
“I’m quite happy so far. I really like the playing style that the coach wants us to go by, which is playing everything really fast and being able to score fastbreak goals. And I like it even more that it allows us to be successful and to win games,” he smiles.
Right now, Nantes are just behind Barça and Kielce in group B, with five rounds left to play.
“We always try to improve. We have given some excellent performances and it feels like there is still room for us to do better,” Odriozola thinks.
But with Christmas approaching, it seems like the big present is there already for Odriozola and his teammates. HBC Nantes will host Barça, and Paris Saint-Germain in the French league, in the 10,000 capacity Neodif XXL Hall. The club has only once played in this iconic venue in the Champions League, back in 2017 – also against Barça. Last season, they drew with eventual EHF European League winners SL Benfica in the arena.
“I watched the games they played there last season and it felt... whoa,” says Odriozola. “Like 10,000 people to watch handball, a regular Champions League game, that’s huge. And that’s what I like about Nantes as well. The fans are so enthusiastic, they sell out our H Arena at every single game, it pushes us even harder.”
While Odriozola has played against Barça many times already with Irun, his former club, hosting the reigning champions still holds that special taste.
“They are, to me, the best club in the world. So I know, from my experience, that it is not going to be easy for us trying to beat them, but I have faith in us to. We did a good game there, even though we lost, so I have hopes for that return game,” he adds.
Playing against the Champions League titleholders in front of so many enthusiastic people, Kauldi Odriozola has a simple sentence to sum up the whole event: “It sounds like a dream.”
