After finding themselves in all sorts of trouble traveling to the European Championship, tenacious Macedonia was unable to resist the strong Danish team. It was 29-21 for the hosts in front of 14.000 of their home fans in Jyske Bank Boxen arena in Herning. The match started as a bit of a rollercoaster for the Danish team, failing to build on their 6-1 lead for the 7th minute into the 1st half. Macedonian persistence nearly granted them a chance to overturn as they were trailing only two goals in the opening minutes of the second half. It was 12-8 at the half-time interval, as Denmark couldn’t find consistence in their game. Lazarov had a bad start to the game, shooting 4/10 in the first half; to end the game with 7/15.
In Danish team contributions were evenly spread trughout, with Mortensen- the highest scorer for his team with 5, followed by Hansen with 4. It was 40 minutes in, when Landin came to play, with a series of good saves (two consecutive) to repel Macedonian attacking threat. By 50th minute, Danish lead quickly rose to 6 goals with exhausted Macedonian defense, and well guarded Lazarov, as the sole ‘go to’ man. Denmark reaches the high point late in the game having 8-goal difference with 5 minutes to go. In the dying minutes, Macedonians were merely the spectators to their demise, as Danish wings were scoring their goals from the counters, setting the final score at 29-21.
It was Ristovski in the end that shone well above many of his teammates, securing a number of important saves in his team’s loss. Both Landin and Ristovski were selected the best players of their teams, with of number outstanding saves throughout. In the next matches of the group A;the winners Austria and Denmark will meet, while Macedonia will look to bounce back in a match vs. Czech Republic, who lost heavily to Austria.
NEMANJA SAVIC
PHOTO: http://macedoniahandball.com.mk
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