FIRST FOR FRANCE: Karabatic calms down fanatic Tunisians | Handball Planet
Rio 2016

FIRST FOR FRANCE: Karabatic calms down fanatic Tunisians

The two times Olympic winners who came to Rio for a hat-trick, French stars had difficult job at the start of the tournament against Tunisia 25:23 (16:11). Instead of level of quality which had their rivals, Tunisians had to offer fighting spirit which gave them chance to play an interesting finish against the world’s best team.

The African side was pushed by goalie Maggaiz who saved 17 balls and was the key factor for the interesting second half.

After 20 minutes nobody could predict interesting ending, as France had +7 – 12:5. Strong defense, easy goals by Kentin Mahe, solid Vincent Gerrard between the posts, was something which was on the table from the team of Claude Onesta.

However, second half was much more interesting. The biggest Tunisian star from FC Barcelona, Wael Jallouz scored for 20:19 in 47th minute to give the match another rhytm.  Destiny of the match took, who else than Nikola Karabatic, who scored three of last five goals for his team to secure first victory at Olympic Games.

Mahe was TOP scorer with 5 goals, one more than Karabatić and Porte. In defeated squad, Tej netted six ahead of Jallouz with five.

PHOTO: IHF.info

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