Slovenia’s Dragan Gajic (left) shoots the ball past Belarus goalkeeper Ivan Matskevich (right) during their 24th Men’s Handball World Championships match at the Lusail Sports Arena yesterday. (AFP)

By Yash Mudgal/Doha


Riding on a superb show by Dragan Gajic, Slovenia posted their second consecutive win at the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship yesterday.
The 30-year-old right-winger Gajic netted nine goals before the break and 15 in all as Slovenia avenged their 2013 European Championship qualification defeat against Belarus.
Slovenia had an easy win in their opener against Chile and with the 34-29 victory over Belarus, they have opened the gates for the knock-out stage, while Belarus, who were beaten by Spain in the first match, now have their backs against the wall.
Both teams began with traditional 6-0 defence formations, and even though Slovenia saw two players leave the court with two-minute suspensions in the 7th minute, the game started on level pegging.
An impressive contribution by Gajic soon started to create a gap between the two sides.
In spite of missing a penalty, Gajic scored no less than eight of his team’s first twelve goals, as Slovenia went from 6-5 to 12-5.
An unusually high number of two-minute suspensions made it hard for both teams to get a rhythm going, but Slovenia were better at adjusting to the peculiar conditions.
Their solid defence with a strong Gorazd Skof in goal made way for a series of counter-attacks, from which Gajic benefited in particular.
This enabled the Slovenians to increase their lead even further before half-time, at which point the gap had grown to nine goals (17-8).
The Belarusians sparked a comeback with three goals within the first two and a half minutes of the second-half. However, the Slovenians soon extinguished that hope as the rest of the match was more or less one-way traffic.
A three-goal deficit was as close as they got, before Slovenia closed out the game winning by a five-goal margin.
Belarus’ usual big star Siarhei Rutenka, who scored only once in the 33-38 loss to Spain, was rather modest when it came to scoring yesterday. He scored four times while his younger brother Dzianis was the top-scorer for Belarus with six goals.
“Our very good defence, especially marking Siarhei Rutenka, and our one-to-one play helped us create lots of fast breaks with Gajic leading the charge. So eventually we created a large gap in the first-half,” Slovenia goalkeeper Gorazd Skof said.
“In the second half we, however, allowed them to score several times from the six-meter line,” he added.
On the upcoming game against Qatar, he said: “We have won twice so far, but this will be a totally different game. We need to rest now and concentrate on how to face them on their own ground.”
Earlier in the day, FYRO Macedonia also scored their second win. Even though Kiril Lazarov and his teammates weren’t at the same level as they were in their opener against Tunisia the night before, a solid performance was enough to beat Iran 33-31.
In a rematch of London 2012 Olympic Games quarter-final clash, Croatia defeated Tunisia 28-25.