Action from yesterday’s placings match between Denmark (white) and Croatia. Denmark won 28-24

By Yash Mudgal/Doha


Twice runners-up Denmark defeated Croatia 28-24 to finish fifth at the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship at the Lusail Multipurpose Hall yesterday.
 After an equal enough beginning, the two teams took their turns at being one goal up. But the Danish defense and goalkeeper Jannick Green soon got the better of the Croatian attack, and the Danes could create a four-goal gap (8-4).
Fast and creative Danish attacking play created problems for Croatians’ defense and their attempts to speed off the game also did not have much success either as Denmark went ahead 14-8.
Replacing Mirko Alilovic in goal with Filip Ivic helped the Croatians a little, and so did pushing Igor Vori forward in a 5-1 formation in the defense, but still the Danes managed to take a 15-11 lead at the halfway mark.
 The Danish defense still stood well, and behind it Jannick Green went on doing his job—saving shots in the second half.
 At the same time, Mikkel Hansen really started getting his shots in at the opposite end of the court, and the Danes stayed in the lead by three to five goals.
 Croatia, who were playing for revenge after losing to Danes one year ago in the semi-final of the European Championship, benefited a bit when Domagoj Duvnjak finally began having success with his shots, but that was not enough to close the gap either.
 Mikkel Hansen scored eight times for Denmark, while Domagoaj Duvnjak, Luka Stepancic and Ivan Sliskovic scored four times each for Croatia.
 Denmark and Croatia already had secured their spot for the Olympic Qualification tournaments by reaching the 5/6 placement match.

Germany finish seventh
 Earlier in the day, former champions Germany came seventh after defeating Slovenia 30-27. The win helped them qualify for the Olympic qualification tournament.
 Slovenia will have to wait for the Asian Olympic Qualification event in October 2015 or for the European championship in January 2016, to know whether their eighth position will be enough to qualify for those tournaments.
“It was a good game. I am very happy with the result. We knew it wouldn’t be a perfect game of handball yet our team showed a lot of character. It is very important for us to finish the tournament with a win,” German coach Dagur Sigurdsson said.
 Even though Slovenia played with their substitutes from the outset, they still got the better start, being two goals up at 2-0, 3-1 and 5-3 and even three up at 7-4, mainly due to a strong right side in the attack with right-back Jure Natek scoring four goals and right wing Vid Kavticnik scoring two of the Slovenians’ first seven goals.
 After a timeout Germany regrouped and caught up with the Slovenians’ three goal lead (7-7).
 Germany, who entered the championship with a wild card, took lead for the first time at 10-9 after 18 minutes. They extended the lead soon to two goals at 11-9 and maintained it till half-time 16-14.
 From the beginning of the second half the Germans increased their lead to three goals at 20-17 to four at 22-18 and to five at 24-19.  Jure Natek was the only real threat to the German defense, and he alone could obviously not keep Slovenia in the game.
 A direct red card for left-wing Luka Zwizej at the 13 minutes into the second-half handicapped the Slovenians even further in the efforts to get back into the match.
 Germany extended their advantage to six goals at 27-21, and even though the Germans lost a little concentration in the last 10 minutes, they were still able to maintain their six-goal lead until the last minutes of the match, when Slovenia managed to reduce the deficit in half.
 German captain Uwe Gensheimer scored 13 goals, while Natek led Slovenia with eight. “It was the ninth game for my team at this tournament. We were pretty exhausted and many of our players were injured. Clearly it gave us less chance against a team like Germany,” Slovenia coach Boris Denic said.
 Slovenia’s right-winger Dragan Gajic added three more goals to his tally to top the overall top-scorers’ list with 71 goals. Qatar’s right-back Zarko Markovic will have to score at least 12 times in the final against France to overtake Gajic.
“Germans were better. We missed Uros Zorman, who is the main machine of our team. Bezjak had to play almost 60 minutes, which was so hard if we know that this was the ninth match on the tournament. We made all what we need in Doha—Olympic qualifications,” Gajic said.
Talking about his performance in the championship, he said, “My teammates and coach believed in me during the whole tournament. I tried to maintain concentration, however, I am very proud on my performance in Qatar.”