I know that size is not everything, France won a silver medal in European championship and bronze in world championship with a 1,82 m setter.
Still this is a problem. A player that small will always cost a few points to his team if only on blocking situation. Now if you are really good, you can win your place in a team.
I don't really know how is Barrais's play .
But he sort of remind me of an other young french player, former Tours's wing spiker Raphael Mrozek
Mrozek was best receiver at the 2005 (?) Youth European championship and is also 1,88 m tall.
He played a few good games during the 2006/2007 season (including some European Champion's league games) and proved to be useful to the team. Last year he moved to Asnières and had is first season as a starter.
He had good receiving stats of course (the like of Boskan, Kilama, Exiga, Samardzic), but he was one of the worst spiker of the league (since he played in one of the weakest team and had a lot of balls to attack this explains a lot. He would definitely not have so much spikes to perform in a better team and would have less pressure from the block). Next year he's going to play in one of the title contender for the french pro B. He was rumored to have been considered for a libero role in Toulouse.
These guys can definitely make a pro career in France, but I fear they'll never play at international level if they keep playing as wing spiker. Because there will always be some good receivers 2 m guys like Antiga or Slavev to be in the roster intead of them.
