Group A: Santos
Germany – Montenegro 24:25 (10:12)
After the victory in their first match in preliminary round group A against Norway, Germany was the favorite of their second match against Montenegro. But during the first half their competitor was the better team and made it to a 9:4 lead after the first 15 minutes. The German team had great difficulties in the attack and made a lot of mistakes while Montenegro played consequently until the end. Only in the last four minutes of the first half the Germans improved their result. After 30 minutes Montenegro was leading 12:10 – the match was again open. In the beginning of the second half Germany showed a better performance and caught up to 12:12 after 33 minutes. Nevertheless the next ten minutes belonged to Montenegro, leading by 19:13 after 44 minutes. The match was nearly decided. Even in the closing stages of the match Germany found no means to endanger the victory of Montenegro. They still achieved a 24:25 but in the end their competitor won well deserved. Both teams have now one victory and one defeat.
“We were very satisfied with todays match,” said Dragan Adzic, the coach of Montenegro, while his German counterpart Heine Jensen was not very happy. “As I said before, Montenegro is one of the top teams of this World Championship. We now need to start immediately to focus on our next match against China.”
China – Norway 16:43 (7:20)
In the second match of preliminary round group A Norway won without any difficulties. After their defeat against Germany on the opening day the Scandinavian girls beat China 43:16. It took China more than ten minutes to achieve the first goal, which was actually a penalty. Norway was already leading 7:0 at that time. The match continued like this:12:2 after 15 minutes and 14:3 after 20 minutes. At halftime Norway was 13 goals ahead (20:7). The Norwegians celebrated their speed-handball by scoring one goal after the other. At the end they won well deserved at 43:16.
Best scorer of the match was the Norwegian player Heidi Løke with seven goals. “Yesterday we weren´t satisfied with the second half against Germany because of our weak defence.”
“Today it looked much better“, said Thorir Hergeirsson, the head coach of the Norwegian team. “Although we know that China is not as strong as Germany, things definitely turned out to be good. We have to keep this up also against the strong teams.” His counterpart Wang Xindong said: “It´s a good experience for us to play against Norway in an official match and to improve our abilities. We will analyse our mistakes and will draw the right conclusions.”
Iceland – Angola 24:28 (12:15)
After the complete second match day Angola is the leader in the ranking of preliminary round group A. The Africans won 28:24 against Iceland and thus is the only unbeaten team in this group after two victories (4-0). Iceland, the surprising team of the previous day when they beat the favourite Montenegro 22:21, started better into the match and led 7:5 after eleven minutes. But after that things changed. Angola scored four times in a row – three goals were scored by Marcelina Kiala – and turned the match. It was amazing to see how the Africans improved step by step. After 23 minutes the score was 13:9 for Angola. Until the end of the first 30 minutes Iceland caught up only one goal and Angola was leading 15:12. Also in the second half the Angolan team dominated the match. Eleven minutes before the end Azenaide Danila Carlos scored the 25:19. This was the pre-decision. After sixty minutes Angola won the match 28:24. Best players of the match were Angola’s Marcelina Kiala and Iceland’s Stella Sigurdardottir who both scored six times.
Group B: Barueri
Korea – Kazakhstan 31:19 (16:4)
The Korean girls handled the 24:39 against Russia from Match Day 1 very well – and showed their real face on Sunday 4 December. The team of Jae Won Kang left Kazakhstan chanceless and took revenge for the final defeat of the Asian Championships 2010 – and even beat their opponents clearer than at the Asian Olympic Qualification some weeks ago.
As Kazakhstan was completely out of rhythm in the starting period, Korea benefitted from their mistakes and punished nearly all of them by counter attacks. It took only 19 minutes when the distance were already ten goals at 11:1 – and it took even two minutes more before Kazakhstan scored their second goal. After an absolute one-sided first half the result was 16:4 – and the Korean spectators were going crazy.
As the winner was obvious after 30 minutes, Korea decelerated and allowed their opponent some goals without being endangered at any second. It was a small success for Kazakhstan that they reached a draw after the break. The top scorers were Woo, Sim and Choi with four goals each for Korea, Nedopekina hit the net five times for Kazakhstan.
Jae Won Kang, Korean coach: “We played much better than yesterday, but the opponent was much weaker than Russia. After the break we tried some tactics and changed a lot of players. I think it will take one or two matches until we are really well-rehearsed.”
Vadim Bykanow, Kazakhstan assistant coach: “Korea as a former World and Olympic champion is much stronger than our team. Our main problem was that we missed too many chances in counter attacks, but I hope we learn from those mistakes.”
Spain – Russia 22:28 (9:14)
It was no handball deli, but a pure defence battle between two of the strongest teams of the World Championship. Spain and Russia started with great confidence after their clear opening victories against Netherlands and Korea. And right from the first second the fight for every centimetre in the Arena Barueri started. All players were willing to win this match – and no player gave any space to her opponent.
The Russians took control over the match early, but could not leave Spain behind with a clear goal difference in the first half. On both sides the goalkeepers had a brilliant day and the shooters were unlucky in most of the cases. Thanks to their defence wall Russia extended the gap to 11:6 in the 23rd minute and 14:9 at the break. But the Spanish resistance was not broken, even though the gap increased to 20:14 in the middle of the second half. Thanks to goalkeeper Sedoykina’s saves and the loss of power of the Spaniards, Russia became more dominant – but missed too many chances for an early decision. Coach Jewgeny Trefilow ran wild on the bench, when seeing his players failing in attack against extraordinary Silvia Navarro in the Spanish goal.
Although the gap was still five or six goals, the defending champion did not stay calm and patient, but played nervously and hectically – in contrast to their gala against Korea yesterday. The victory was a success of the collective, not of some individual players, which is typical for Russian handball. But also the Spanish side can be proud of the way they fought against the favourite for the title in Brazil. Despite their woman-to-woman defence in the last five minutes, the Spaniards lost the game, which was decided at least at the 26:19 in the 56th minute.
Statements after the match:
Jorge Duenas, coach Spain: “We had problems in attack, as we lost too many balls, but it was really hard to play against this strong Russian defence and goalkeeper.”
Jewgeny Trefilow, coach Russia: “It was a very athletic game with the most important question: Who runs more? I am not satisfied with our back court line except Bliznova and Levina, who were the only ones to score. But the most important thing is that we have those points, maybe we have more luck in the next games.”
Andrea Barno, player Spain: “It was areal hard game, in which we wanted to make it difficult for Russia to win. But we scored too less.”
Olga Chernoivanenko, player Russia: “This was our most important match in the Preliminary Round, as we know the strength of Spain after losing against them last year at the European Championship. We were very focused on the match and fought until the end – and we managed to accomplish our mission.”
Australia – Netherlands 15:53 (6:27)
Australia was the ideal opponent for the Dutch team after their opening defeat against Spain. Coach Henk Groener gave playing time to all his team members – and several youngsters like Lois Abbingh or Estefana Polman (both Silver medallists at the Junior’s European Championship) could show their high performance level. On the other hand the Australians reached their minimum goal for all World Championship matches: Cheered by the fans, yellow dressed and shouting “Aussie, Aussie”, they scored more than 10 goals. In the 48th minute this target was marked at the score of 10:43. Due to their missing physical, technical and tactical skills the underdog from down under again was absolutely chanceless against the Europeans, who aim for a ticket for the Olympic Qualification Tournaments and ranked eights at the last European Championship. So coach Henk Groener could save the power of his top players like Maura Visser and Pearl van der Wissel. Best Australians were again the goalkeepers Jemima Harbort and Catherine Kent. After a foul Veronica Kelly received a direct red card in the 48th minute. The highlight of the final stage was the 50th Dutch goal, scored by goalkeeper Mandy Burrekers.
Statements after the match:
Henk Groener, coach Netherlands: “After our disappointing match against Spain today we wanted to have fun on the field – and we had it. We started well and later-on everything worked – we even built up the Australian goalkeeper by missing our chances. “
Katsuhito Kinoshita, coach Australia: “We scored much more goals than against Kazakhstan – and this makes us proud. I always try to find the positive things of a match to motivate my players for the next matches.”
text: IHF