PORTE Valentin

General
CLUB LEADER
He was appointed captain of his club team, Montpellier, in 2018. "I am not a king of speech. I'm not very comfortable with it, but as a captain sometimes I have to say certain things, that's my role. And I do. I just try not to do it all the time, because when we talk too much, at one point, people tend to stop listening to you. I want to lead by example, on and off the pitch. Sometimes you have to yell, sometimes encourage, sometimes praise." (sans-filtre.fr, 09 Mar 2021; actu.fr, 29 Aug 2018; padel-magazine.co.uk, 29 Apr 2020)

GOALKEEPER TO FIELDER
He started playing handball as a goalkeeper because all the other positions at the club were taken, but his left handedness was a valued commodity so he was moved to the field at age 13. "When I was 13, I switched to winger. It was not especially voluntary on my part. It was the will of the coaches of the time. I was not very tall, left-handed, so they were the ones who encouraged me to leave the goal to play on the field. As a left-hander, they made me understand that I would be more useful as a field player. I had to learn to play at 13 years old. So at first, I was bad. Being left-handed clearly opened doors for me, however. I discussed this not long ago with my coach at the time, who clearly told me, 'If we took you, it's because you were left-handed'. I worked a lot and I progressed quickly. I still like to go in goal, sometimes in training, to have fun. But when I find myself in front of a goalkeeper [in a match] those years in goal don't help me at all." (programme-tv.net, 27 Jan 2014; experts-handball.com, 07 Apr 2014; metronews.fr, 12 Jan 2014; sans-filtre.fr, 09 Mar 2021)