France’s William Accambray (third from left) tries to score past Iceland goalkeeper Bjorgvin Pall Gustavsson during their match yesterday. PICTURE: Shemeer Rasheed

By Joe Koraith/Lusail

For France it was a chance to top the group and for Iceland, it was a chance to climb up the standings. But in the end there were no victors as match no. 34 of the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship ended in a 26-26 stalemate. But what a draw it was.
This draw meant that Sweden, who had an easy 27-19 win over Algeria, now top the group with six points. France are in second place. And Egypt, who pulled off an exciting 27-24 win over Czech Republic, are in third place with four points. Iceland are fourth with three points.
The France-Iceland encounter, a rematch of the 2008 Beijing Olympics final, was played at a furious pace. Iceland looked a different side compared to their earlier games and were very efficient with their fast breaks. They were constantly in lead and finished the first period 14-12 ahead. The French were constantly breathing down their necks.
But Iceland showed no signs of slowing down in the second half. France, European and Olympic title holders, then put in a strong run and drew level with ten minutes to go. The score was 22-22 then. Neither team was able to wrestle the advantage after that and the match, despite a few nervous moments for both sets of fans, ended in a draw.

Egypt post second win
Egypt celebrated their second win of the tournament to put them one step closer to a spot in the pre-quarters. The match played at the Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiya Arena in Al Sadd saw a huge contingent of Egyptian fans turning up to cheer their team.
“First of all I want to thank my players for their performance and our fans, because they cheered for us with a unique way and they were once again the pillars of our effort. There is no doubt that this team keeps the name of Egypt very high. Czech Republic is a great team, but tonight we played them in the most effective manner. We read the situations, our goalkeeper had an outstanding game, we were lucky in some moments and that’s all,” said Egypt coach Marwan Ragab.
When asked about the next round Ragab said: “We are not thinking of the next stage. We have to play two more games in the first round and we will give our best to take the highest possible place. I repeat that we take one game at a time.”
His counterpart, Czech coach Jan Filip conceded that Egypt were a better team. “Tonight we played a better game than we did against Sweden, but unfortunately it was not enough for us to get the win. We didn’t take advantage of the chances we had to score and our defence was not so strong in the last and crucial moments.”
For Egypt the biggest stars were their goalkeeper Karim Handawy and right back Ahmed Elahmar, who put their team four goals up at 8:4 after 14 minutes.
The Czech team were boosted by the return of their star player Filip Jicha but couldn’t stop Elahmar who ensured Egypt finished the second half three points ahead at 13-10.
There was a brief stutter when the Czechs were able to level the score at the start of the second half but the Egyptians soon found their rhythm and went ahead 18-15, and then maintained the pressure for the rest of the second half to register a strong win. Elahmar was Egypt’s top-scorer with five goals.

Easy win for Sweden
Sweden continued their winning streak, outplaying reigning African champions Algeria 27-19 and securing a place in the eight-finals.
Sweden started strong and took a 7-1 lead. The Algerian offence were found wanting against a strong Swedish defence which produced numerous fast breaks and easy goals for the favourites.
Sweden had rested some key players in the second half but still managed to keep up the tempo. At one point, they even increased the lead up to 10 but Algeria managed to slightly narrow the deficit in the closing minutes.