Bouktit's game: “I want to show another image of the line player position”

While some players, growing up and gaining experience, will maybe take the fun side of handball out of the equation, Sarah Bouktit is not at that point yet, despite starting to play in the EHF Champions League Women at a very young age.

“I guess the fact that I started playing those big games so early helped me learn faster, but I also can deal with pressure quite easily. I have been playing the Champions League since I was 17, so it is like I have been doing it almost forever,” adds the French national team player.

And if you watch Bouktit play, there are many things which make her stand out as not just another line player. For a start, she shoots seven-metre throws, a discipline that is usually left to wings and backcourt players.

“This is something I have always done a little bit. And when I joined the A team, of course players were doing it already, but I still kept on shooting them at the end of training sessions,” recalls Bouktit. “And Manu (Emmanuel Mayonnade), my coach in Metz, saw me doing it, thought that I was quite good at it, and asked me to do it during the games.”

While shooting penalties might add more pressure to some players, to the Metz line player it is just another opportunity to have fun.

“I think about a lot of things on my way to the seven-metre throw: where did I shoot the previous shot, what kind of goalkeeper I am facing, should I fake or shoot straight away?” she laughs, before explaining how the work with the Metz goalkeepers help her scoring in that exercise.

“I train with Camille Depuiset and Cléo Darleux, and both give me advice about what to do and about what could be going on in the goalkeeper’s head at that point.”

But also otherwise, Bouktit thinks a lot on the court.

“Offensively, I often try to think what could be going on in my opponents’ heads, what they could anticipate me doing. So I try to lure them into something, a run to the left for example, before going to the right and being able to receive the ball on my own,” she explains.

Bouktit gets a lot of playing time with her club. In fact, she plays almost 60 minutes in every EHF Champions League match, yet remains lucid and focused after running around for an hour.

“There are two things that are key to me,” she says. “In Metz, we think a lot. Like, we have a lot of intelligent players, very fine tactically, so it helps to be in this kind of vibe all the time. But also, I train a lot to be fit. If you are able to handle the game physically, the head will just follow. But if you are already dead after 40 minutes, no way you will be able to make the good choices in crunch time.”

And Bouktit will tell you that the defensive part of the game is often about making choices. While she is not always used by her coaches in that part of the game, she will often try to offer a different perspective.

“Like, I will try to trick my opponent. Sometimes it’s to hide away the fact that I feel weaker in some part of defending, but also it’s just about making a step forward to force my opponent to pass the ball to the line player, but I did already anticipate it,” she describes.

And right after defending, when her team has recovered again, Bouktit runs to the other side of the court.

“That is maybe my favourite part, because it’s not what people expect from line players. Like, I am able to sprint, receive the ball, dribble and pass it to the wingers, for example,” she explains. “Line players are often expected to stick to the six-metre line and to wait for the ball, but I try to be so much more than that. I really want to show another image of the line player position.”

No wonder Bouktit has caught the eyes of the best coaches in Europe. At the age of 20, Bouktit played her first international competition with France, just a few months before delivering what she calls her best-ever game.

“And it’s a strange memory, as this game against Vipers Kristiansand last season is both my worst and my best game,” she laughs. “In the first 15 minutes, I missed everything: four shots, in defence I was terrible, like a proper disaster, and Manu put me on the bench. That rarely happens, so that says how ridiculous I was.”

But then the wind started to blow from the exact opposite direction: “I went back on court five minutes later, and the rest was nuts. I scored 14 out of 14 shots after the first four misses, I defended like crazy and we won.”

This memory, as well as so many things that she can say about herself, make Sarah Bouktit a different player.

“I just don’t want to end up in the line player box, where people put players for them to just to move and do nothing, just wait for the ball. I do everything so I am different.”

Photos © Kevin Clement, Cedosa 380, Kolektiff Images