Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!

France won against the Croatian team and the hostile Croatian supporters with 24:19. France is now the Handball World Champion. Vive la France! Well earned with an exciting match!

Poland got the bronze medal with their clear victory over a weary acting Denmark (31:23).

I also updated the final ranking below.

As expected, France and Croatia will meet in this year’s finale of the World Men’s Handball Championship. Denmark and Poland fight for bronze.

Yesterday, France won easily against Denmark: 27:22. And Croatia declassified Poland with 29:23, I guess the success is also partly based on the furious Croatian supporters in the hall. France and Croatia both displayed really nice and for a viewer enjoyable handball playing. I guess the finale will be hot, very hot!

Germany won their match against Hungary yesterday with 28:25 and reached at least rank five.

[update: 02.02.2009] Added the final four to the list.

The final ranking:

1. France
2. Croatia
3. Poland
4. Denmark
5. Germany
6. Hungary
7. Sweden
8. Serbia
9. Norway
10. Slovakia
11. Macedonia
12. South Korea
13. Spain
14. Egypt
15. Romania
16. Russia
17. Tunisia
18. Argentina
19. Algeria
20. Cuba
21. Brazil
22. Kuwait
23. Saudi Arabia
24. Australia

Norway played a really good match, fighting like lions against lucky Poland and lost unluckily in the last seconds. Fourteen seconds… 30:30… Norway is in the possession of the ball, they now play with seven field players an no goal keeper, everything’s set to score the last goal in the game.

Oh no, Kristian Kjelling botches during the offence and Polish player Artur Siódmiaka catches the ball and throws it with a wide curve over the whole field into Norway’s empty goal. 31:30! Not only ending Norway’s dreams of reaching the semifinales, but also shattering the last hope of Germany to get there, too. The German team needed a draw between Poland and Norway to get on.

This match was really a heart attack match. In the end I jumped of my chair heavily cursing after the ball landed inside Norway’s goal. Well, understandable when two of my personal favourites are eliminated from the tournament.

Now all my hope and wishes rest on the Danish!

Following the bad experience with the Slovenian referees in the match between Germany and Norway, now the referees are the bad guys again. Denmark won the match against Germany with 27:25, overshadowed by the shady decisions of the this time Roumanian referees against the German team. Two games in a row where the referees perform in a questionable way - coincidence?

Otherwise it was an exciting match and in the end the Danes won with sheer luck and stronger nerves. Well, they only needed a draw to get to the semifinales. My hero of the day was Kasper Hvidt - a really exceptional goal keeper! Nevertheless the newly reformed German team played an exciting and good tournament. Let’s look forward to the European Championship 2010!

In Group I, France won against South Korea (30:21) and Croatia against Slovakia (31:25). So both winners have reached the semifinales. The other games of Group II have been Serbia versus Poland (23:35) and Denmark against Macedonia (32:24). It still not decided which teams move on to the semifinales. We have to wait for tomorrow’s matches between Germany versus Denmark and Norway versus Poland.

Group I

1. France - 8:0 pts - 120:90 - +30
2. Croatia - 8:0 pts - 115:98 - +17
3. Hungary - 3:5 pts - 99:108 - -9
4. Slovakia - 3:5 pts - 97:110 - -13
5. Sweden - 2:6 pts - 108:114 - -8
6. South Korea - 0:8 pts - 92:111 - -19

Group II

1. Denmark - 6:2 pts - 129:120 - +9
2. Germany - 5:3 pts - 122:106 - +16
3. Poland - 4:4 pts - 119:111 - +8
4. Norway - 4:4 pts - 108:110 - -2
5. Serbia - 3:5 pts - 121:133 - -12
6. Macedonia - 2:6 pts - 104:123 - -19

Semifinales…

A win against Denmark is Germany’s only chance to get into the semifinale. So we can expect a hot match tomorrow. Norway has to win, too - but also has to achieve a better goal difference than Denmark, which will be very hard work against Poland.

Just a gut feeling, but I suspect this setup to come:

• 1st SF: France vs. Poland
• 2nd SF: Croatia vs. Denmark

Shamelessly stealing the headline from Aftenposten. In a very exciting match, Norway won against Germany with a close 25:24. Gratulasjon!

I won’t comment much on the referees, but it seemed the German and Norwegian trainers were not very amused about them.

Sadly, this match was overshadowed by the injury of Michael Kraus, which according to the TV slow motion looked a lot like a very bad ligament rupture. Best player on German side was the goalkeeper Silvio Heinevetter, on Norwegian side Håvard Tvedten as well as their goalkeeper Steinar Ege.

Germany has to win against Denmark next Tuesday to get to the semifinales now. And with the chance they got now, Norway has to win against Poland to get through as well. Furthermore, with Hungary’s win over Sweden, both, Sweden and Hungary, don’t have a chance to reach the semifinales.

And concerning Norwegian names (and general moderation of the match), the RTL moderator was worse, a lot worse than his counterpart from DSF.

Yesterday, the German team had troubles with Serbia. The match resulted in a draw, 35:35. During the first half, German playing was crap and Serbia came out of the top with 19:16 after the first half. But the German team got a lot, really a lot better in the second half. Serbia has a strong and good handball team, even if they seem to use a lot of semi-hidden, unfair moves against their opponents. With luck, Germany closed the match at least with a draw and I guess, if we had ten more seconds in the second half, Germany would have scored another goal and won.

Norway won against Macedonia 29:27 in an exciting match. Best players were IMO Kristian Kjelling and Håvard Tvedten. BTW, DSF moderators should learn how to pronounce Norwegian names right.

The rest of the Handball day: Denmark sadly lost against Poland (28:32); France won over Sweden (28:21), Slovakia won versus South Korea (23:20) and Croatia won against Hungary (27:22).

Group I

1. France - 6:0 pts - 90:69 - +21
2. Croatia - 6:0 pts - 84:74 - +10
3. Slovakia - 3:3 pts - 73:79 - -6
4. Sweden - 2:4 pts - 78:83 - -5
5. Hungary - 1:5 pts - 68:78 - -10
6. South Korea - 0:6 pts - 71:81 - -10

Group II

1. Germany - 5:1 pts - 98:81 - +17
2. Denmark - 4:2 pts - 97:96 - +1
3. Serbia - 3:3 pts - 98:98 - 0
4. Norway - 2:4 pts - 83:86 - -3
5. Poland - 2:4 pts - 84:88 - -4
6. Macedonia - 2:4 pts - 80:91 - -11

So, the prelimaries are over. Which team plays in the main round now? The first three of Groups A, B, C and D get into the Groups I and II. They take their points and goals from matches against the other qualifying teams from the same group with them (one win = 2 pts, draw = 1 pt etc.).

An example:

Group D

Denmark (1st), Serbia (2nd) and Norway (3rd) made it to the main round (after normal point/goal count).

Denmark won against Serbia with 37:36 and against Norway with 32:28. So the two wins are giving 4:0 points and Denmark has a goal total of 69:64. Serbia has lost one match (vs. Denmark) and won the match against Norway with 27:26. So they end up with 2:2 points and a goal total of 63:63. Norway lost the matches against Denmark and Serbia, so they start with 0:4 points and a goal total of 54:59.

The finished main round groups:

Group I

1. France - 4:0 pts - 62:48 - +14
2. Croatia - 4:0 pts - 57:52 - +5
3. Sweden - 2:2 pts - 57:55 - +2
4. Hungary - 1:3 pts - 46:51 - -5
5. Slovakia - 1:3 pts - 50:59 - -9
6. South Korea - 0:4 pts - 51:58 - -7

Group II

1. Germany - 4:0 pts - 63:46 - +17
2. Denmark - 4:0 pts - 69:64 - +5
3. Serbia - 2:2 pts - 63:63 - 0
4. Macedonia - 2:2 pts - 53:62 - -9
5. Norway - 0:4 pts - 54:59 - -5
6. Poland - 0:4 pts - 52:60 - -8

Germany won 30:23 with an impressive performance over Poland. A nice match to view, many individual moves of the German players. Even with only four players (+ goalkeeper) versus Poland’s six plus one, Germany played itself into a frenzy. I hope they can keep up this spirit for the main round.

Best player on German side was the goal keeper, Carsten Lichtlein. Awesome how he kept his goal clear!

BTW, Spain lost their match to South Korea, so now South Korea takes Spain’s place in the main round. And with love from Macedonia, Russia was send to the President’s Cup instead. So Macedonia is still among the teams playing for the championship.