WCh France 2017

[mikh]

Qualification has been long underway.

A round-up of what happened up until now:

Asia: the Asian Handball Championship in Bahrain finished a couple of days ago. Qatar won the final against Bahrain. Japan had a good tournament overall and finished third, winning the final against Saudi Arabia. All 4 Asian semifinalists are qualified for the tournament in France, Qatar by virtue of finishing second behind France (really weird rule invented by the IHF a few weeks ago).
Korea had yet another disappointing tournament. In the group stage they lost to Japan (-5), Qatar (-15!!!) and barely scraped a win over Oman (23:22). They ended up 6th, losing to Iran in the placement match (29:28). Unfortunately, this match might have been their last chance to play the intercontinental qualification tournament.

Africa: the African Handball Championship in Egypt finished this evening with the final Egypt - Tunisia 21:19 (9:10). In the bronze final, a small surprise, Angola - Algeria 24:19. This means Egypt, Tunisia and Angola are all going to the WCh.
Angola was the overall surprise of the competition, losing a really tight match for the 1st place in the group round 21:23, after being up by 3, at HT agains Tunisia. Cameroon also did remarkably good, with a really tight quarter final against Tunisia, which they eventually lost 24:20 (11:10). They finished 5th however, with a surprise win against Morocco in the placement match 30:29.

Europe: Germany, Spain and the winner of Croatia - Norway will join France. The play-off draw is set for tomorrow.

America: Pan-Am championship in the beginning of June, this year.

Apparently, there should be an additional qualification tournament (just like in the women's case) involving most likely Algeria, Iran, the 4th in PanAm and... Australia? Nothing official announced yet.

[Bo$ko]

2017 Men's World Championship,
Qualification Europe - Phase 2 Play Off

Sweden - Bosnia Herzegovina
Czech Republic - Macedonia
Poland - Netherlands
Russia - Montenegro
Serbia - Hungary
Iceland - Portugal
Slovenia - 4th ranked team EURO 2016
Belarus - Latvia
Denmark - Austria

[Bo$ko]

[Divi]

My county Macedonia got a tough group for this Wc, but hopefully we can play some good games here. The team will be without Mirkulovski and Mojsovski since they decided to retire from the national team. It is now time for the young players from Metalurg Skopje like Kuzmanovski and Taleski to show their potential. The team needed this generation switch after some bad performances at the OQT and EC in Poland.

France will again be the favourite to win, also because they play at home. But also Croatia, Germany and Denmark will fight for a medal.

[Ivar]

The NHF should never have accepted the entry to this, not after having had Mr Moustafa on treat on a conference just short time before the announcement They should've asked for a final playoff among the ones that missed out or the highest ranked or so. Never mind the 4th place in the Euro, if this was enough for a spot, then it should have been cleared beforehand. Certainly after Germany got a place in Qatar.

The IHF created a big mess in the last WCh, that's for sure. Something needs to be done about Australia, but nothing has happened yet and instead Norway got a wildcard spot. What incompetence.

[mikh]

Quite a lengthy list of important players missing the WCh (*incert = uncertain):

Rasmus Lauge (Danemarca)

Kevynn Nyokas (Franța)
Mathieu Grebille (Franța)

Domagoj Pavlovic (Croația)
Marko Kopljar (Croația)

Fabian Wiede (Germania)
Christian Dissinger (Germania)
Hendrik Pekeler (Germania)
Steffan Weinhold (Germania)

Zarko Markovic (Qatar HC)
Eldar Memisevic (Qatar HC)
Goran Stojanovic (Qatar HC)
Borja Vidal Fernandez (Qatar HC)

Abdelhak Ben Salah (Tunisia)
Aymed Hammed (Tunisia)
Anis Mahmoudi (Tunisia) – incert

Arthur Patrianova (Brazilia)
Felipe Borges (Brazilia)

Kent Robin Tonnesen (Norvegia)

Jonas Kallman (Suedia)
Andreas Palicka (Suedia) – incert

Michal Szyba (Polonia)
Michal Jurecki (Polonia) – incert
Pawel Paczkowski (Polonia) – incert

Filip Kuzmanovski (Macedonia)

Dimitri Nikulenkau (Belarus)

Stas Skube (Slovenia) – incert
Simon Razgor (Slovenia) – incert
Dean Bombac (Slovenia) – incert

Arnor Atlason (Islanda) – incert

Source: http://www.handbalvolei.ro/qatarul-merg ... eul-final/

[mikh]

Chile with a decent chance to go to the last 16 for the first time in their history after a remarkable win against Belarus, 32:28!
Belarus had a 24:21 lead with 13 mins left, but were turned around at 25:26 in just a few minutes.

The Bonaventura sisters were in charge of the match and pissed off both teams
Still, I think they took one huge wrong decision in the last 3 mins when Chile was only +1 up and they gave one of the most hillarious 2 mins suspensions to a Belarus player for simply watching 2 Chilenos bump into each other

[Mr. 007]

Historic WC Final for Norway

Jesus, what a day! I had belief we could beat Croatia, but I also knew the k**f up history for our men's team; -They always stumble, and get nowhere close to any medal no matter how well they have played in the group stages, and Croatia was a team with tradition helping them on that...last time one year ago at EC bronze final. At EC they had beaten Croatia at the group stages ofc, even send home France, but the curse came back and haunted them yet again...as always before...and ended without any medal...as usual.

Luck had to change sometime, and the wildcard getting them to WC was that change. Luck had changed, it was in the air

Well, it MAY have changed to be correct, as they didn't play at their usual standard in the semifinal ofc, e.g. missing the first 3 penalties for a start...and refs didn't judge goal for Norway while Croatia got goals approved that was attacking faults... Yeah, it didn't really look like anything had changed at all for a while, but more like business as usual for our men's team.

Torbjørn Bergerud saved Croatia's rather cheap penalty at 60:00 minutes and secured extratime


Our captain Bjarte Myrhol have been fighting hard for Norway over 15 years, but never get paid for his tremendous effort in both defense and attack. Today he was our giant leading the way, and it was moving to see his feelings when scoring the final nail in the coffin to 25-28


Seriously, U should check the odds for Norway on Sundays clash against France, and perhaps consider a small bet... I don't think it's money flushing down the toilet tbh

THEY ARE HUNGRY FOR SOME MORE


Hehe...my closest neighbor had a fire in his pipe, and my daughter woke them up and got them out, with two firetrucks putting the fire out and even some police too later on...and I missed it all, hehe, too busy with the match...Jesus....a little embarrassing that whole neighborhood was there, and I had no idea what drama took place




It was all over when I took these pictures, and it went well luckily, with the fire put out, and my daughter a little hero...

[mikh]

^ Interesting night you had, Mr. 007 Sorry to hear that about your neighbour. Hope they're alright now.

I think I know what changed for Norway compared to the times before. I finally got to see them live last night
That last second penalty really was the worse call in a generally bad match made by both teams and especially the 2 refs. Would've been a shame to finish like that.
Norway has such an exciting team and even though they played their worse handball in this championship last night, they still were just a bit better than Croatia (Sagosen and O'Calahan with so many mistakes, Tonnesen benched for most of the match after the two suspensions in the first 10 mins).

Croatia played soooo slow and went in passive play on every attack in the last 10+10 mins. They looked like a football team trying to run the clock down. So disappointing. I know slow handball is their style, but it's a shame, because they have such great players that can play different, more intense handball. They posed little backline threat despite Duvnjak and Mamić's firepower and played too slow despite Cindrić's very good accelerations. My overall impression was that Croatia were trying to force their way into the final, while Norawy was too scared of driving it home earlier. Anyway, I'm happy for Norway (their lack of results, despite great talent reminds me of Romania's women team) and I will support them in the final as well.

[vlad_impaler]

I will keep mouth shut about the Norwegian Handball Federation, starting with the wildcard. Not that Norway don't play good handball, but good handball is played by more nations.

If I would be the EHF boss and even IHF, I would impale many as a good leader I am! I am Vlad the Impaler.

[swarthofole]

This is my first post here (male handball) and it's not because I don't watch men's competitions, it's because I like more the way less
physical of handball. This France (=Norway for women's) is probably the best team in history, but this championship I saw an astonishing Norway and I dare to say it has become my favourite team for the years to come (I just hate dynasties in handball ).
Congratz France and Norway! It's not always about winning...

[kleber]

Congrats France.

Still in my opinion Soviet Union,C.I.S,Russia 1988-2000 is better than France 2006-2017

Russia had three olympic titles and amazing generation.

Duishbayev,Atavin,Yakhimovich,Lavrov,Tuchkine,Torgovanaov,Kudinov,Kiselev.Kulechov,Gopine,Kokcharov.

Sorry France you would lose.

If someone here is 40,50 years knows what i am talking about.

Of course Sweden from the 90's was also great.

Russia 1988-2000
France 2006-2017
Sweden 1990-2002

my top three.

[kleber]

Congrats France.

Still in my opinion Soviet Union,C.I.S,Russia 1988-2000 is better than France 2006-2017

Russia had three olympic titles,two world titles,one european,amazing generation and a a great Sweden side as opposition.

Duishbayev,Atavin,Yakhimovich,Lavrov,Tuchkine,Torgovanov,Kudinov,Kiselev.Kulechov,Gopine,Kokcharov.

Sorry France you would lose.

If someone here is 40,50 years knows what i am talking about.

Of course Sweden from the 90's was also great.

Russia 1988-2000
France 2006-2017
Sweden 1990-2002

my top three.

[vlad_impaler]

Romania 1961-1974, also very good and golden generations. And then they faced huge opposition. Not like now France, just in Denmark, and Spain and Croatia so-so. I mean about Germany, East and West Germany, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union and Poland. 8!!! 9 countries were fighting for the World medals.

And we talk about the overrated men's handball of today? Men's handball nowadays has no opposition.

But in terms of generations:

1. France
2. Romania
3-4. Sweden/Russia (Soviet Union)
5. Spain

If we talk about some certain years, a long period of time. Because the Swedes also dominated the first editions of men's handball.

[Mr. 007]

The silverboys

It wasn't ment to be to beat France today, absolutely everything said otherwise even before the match had started. France with 15.000 supporters that for me looked much, much more tbh, playing at home, and with one more day to recover for the final...and they had the best team ever at just this day too...a total nightmare

Still I had to pinch my arm when seeing our team really giving the French a fight for their lives, and man U could taste the guts

Playing with no respect, France was shaken for a long time first half :)


Unfortunatly they couldn't keep the pace, and while they got more tired, the French seemed to get more strength instead, and it soon became clear that France would win this clearly, only a matter how big of a victory...33-26 in the end.

I remember the start of our handball girls. The bronzegirls in 1986 The silverboys have got an even better start

Congratz with silver, it's the start of a bright new future



And....Bjarte Myrhol (34), Sander Sagosen (21) og Kristian Bjørnsen (28) were selected to the all star team. Congratz

[frenchy]

Your boys were good and desserve respect but i can't let saying that french team had no respect for Norvegians!

This is the contrary they said after the match they were contracted by pressure to play a final at home and that your gus had a good strategy was rigth .
In the same our GK (Omeyer) was out and the substitute have changed many things with a more aggressive defense.

Players and spectators have respected all the teams during these championships .

[Mr. 007]

Ofc, U just misunderstood me a little

France is the very best team in the world, and while our girls are very beatable, that is not the case for France at all. They are unbeatable, and will be so for many years to come...still, we will try ofc

[mikh]

Slightly off topic, but I didn't know where else to put it. It seems that NBC is interested in organising a reality show about forming an American handball team that would try to qualify in the 2024 OG. They've contacted the US Federation and the project seems to be quite serious; even Hassan Moustafa wanted to hear more and had an NBC producer invited for the final weekend of the WCh in Paris.

More details here: http://teamhandballnews.com/wordpress/2 ... velopment/

Like the author, I am a bit skeptical concerning their chances to reach their main goal, but I do think that this can be a very good attempt to try and make this sport more popular in the US.

I do have two comments:
1. Is this project concerning both the men and women teams? If only one, I seriously think they could have more chances in reaching their goal with their women team.
2. If Chicago becomes the host of the 2024 OG, the whole idea of the show should change, as both US teams will be qualified. Wonder if this isn't going to take away some of the motivation to put the whole thing in place to begin with.