US Créteil

Every meeting with US Ivry Handball carries the weight of the same city split in two: Créteil and Ivry-sur-Seine sit close enough in the Val-de-Marne that their handball fixture has taken on its own name, the Derby du Val-de-Marne, and neither side treats it as an ordinary league date.

The Rams built their name on a run that peaked in the late 1980s, when Créteil took the French championship in 1989 and paired it with the Coupe de France the same year — a domestic double that still marks the high point of the club's history. A second Coupe de France followed in 1997, and the Coupe de la Ligue came in 2003. Between those honours the club has spent stretches outside the top flight, climbing back through the second division on three occasions, in 1984, 2011 and 2014.

Among the players who passed through Créteil, Luc Abalo stands apart: he came through the club before going on to a career that carried him through some of the biggest stages in the sport, and his name is the one still attached to Créteil's reputation as a place that produces players rather than just fields a team.

Home games are played in front of just under 2,400 people at the Palais des Sports Robert Oubron, a modest setting for a club whose colours, dark blue and light blue, have been on court since the 1960s — the decade in which US Créteil Handball first came together.