Handball WM 2017 Frankreich: Die „deutsche“ Vorrunden-Gruppe C bei der Handball-Weltmeisterschaft bekommt langsam hierarchische Strukturen. Kroatien mit zwei Siegen und Deutschland sowie Chile mit einem Erfolg. Nun stehen sich die deutsche Handbal-Nationalmannschaft von Bundestrainer Dagur Sigurdsson und das chilenische Team am Sonntag in Rouen gegenüber.
15.01.2017 – France Handball / SPORT4FINAL / Frank Zepp:
Handball WM 2017 Frankreich:
Seven games of the 2017 World Championship take place on Sunday, 15 January, in Nantes, Metz, Rouen et Paris. Here is the most important information about the two Group A games, the Group B game and the two Group C and D games.
Group A, Nantes, Hall XXL – 17:45 France vs Norway
Norway has only beaten France twice in the World Championships, the last one was in 1961. In official competitions, the last clash between the two teams resulted in a Norway win (29:24). It took place at the last EURO in 2016. Norway counts one international player in the French league at the moment: Ole Erevik, added Saturday. A second one will arrive next summer, in Paris: Sander Sagosen. On the other hand, no international French player has ever been in a Norwegian club.
„France are the clear favourites to finish first in the group. We want to finish in the top two,“ were the words from Sander Sagosen after the opening win against Poland (22:20). Kentin Mahe, on the other hand, sees Norway „as what looks like their toughest opponent in the group. If we beat them, we should be able to finish first“.
20:45 Brazil vs Japan
This game is a battle between the two Group A teams who have suffered the hardest losses in their first games. Brazil lost to France 31:16 while Japan were badly beaten by Russia, 39:29. The two teams only played once against each other in World Championships. That was in 2011, in the first phase, and Japan won by only one goal, 33:32.
This will be Brazil’s turn to play two games in as many days. Japan played Russia then France on Thursday and Friday, and now Brazil faces Japan after playing against Poland yesterday.
Group B, Metz, Arènes – 14:45 Iceland vs Tunisia
Iceland go into the game without any points following two defeats in their opening two France 2017 games, against Spain (27:21) and Slovenia (26:25). Nearly 10 years ago to the day (24 Jan), Iceland beat Tunisia 36:30 in the main round of the 2007 IHF Men’s World Championship, held in Germany. Tunisia left-wing Oussama Boughanmi scored his 500th goal for his country against FYR Macedonia when his 27th minute strike made it 13:12 – his fourth of the game, after starting on 496 goals.
Group C, Rouen, Kindarena – 14:45 Chile vs Germany
It is the first ever duel for both sides in the history of the World Championship. Both started their France 2017 campaign victorious: Chile beat Belarus to gain their first ever win against a European team at a WCh and their first ever victory in the preliminary round, while Germany had big problems to defeat Hungary.
The great-grandfather of the Chilean Feuchtmann brothers Erwin and Emil was German. He left Mannheim (the home town of German team captain Uwe Gensheimer) in the 1920’s to settle down in Chile. Their sister Inga is also a national team player and now is the press officer of the men’s team. Emil and Erwin had been playing for German clubs.
“We want to continue living our dream to make it to the knock-out stage,” said Spanish-born Chilean coach Mateo Garralda. German coach Dagur Sigurdsson is aware of their opponent’s qualities: “We always had problems in facing teams from South America.” Both coaches steered their teams to the finals of their respective continental championships: Germany became EURO 2016 champion, while Chile was Pan American runners-up in 2016.
20:45 Saudi Arabia vs Belarus
Four years ago, at the World Championship in Spain, Belarus taught the Saudis a lesson with a 33:15 win in the preliminary round. Both teams lost their openers narrowly, and thus are under pressure. While the Belarusian defeat against Chile was a surprise, the Saudis expectedly lost to Croatia. “We need to improve if we want to proceed to the eighth-finals,” said Belarusian coach Youri Chevtsov.
Both coaches – Kljaic (of KSA) and Chevtsov (BLR) – were opponents in the German Bundesliga 15 years ago. The Belarusian was coaching several different clubs, while Kljaic was under contract with Grosswallstadt for six years.
Group D, Paris, AccorHotels Arena – 14:45 Argentina vs Sweden
It will be the sixth clash between these two teams. The balance is clearly in favour of Sweden who lead four to one — with the last, large victory in August before the start of the Olympic Games in Rio (20:11).
The only Argentinian win against Sweden (27:22) took place during a former World Championship (2011, in Sweden during the preliminary round), and both teams were in Group D… a sign of something to come? Argentina have three brothers in their team: Diego, Sebastian and Pablo Simonet who all played in France, Diego is the only still playing for French team, Montpellier Handball
17:45 Barhain vs Qatar
Neighbours Qatar and Bahrain have played each other six times over the last three years. Two of these meetings happened in the Asian Championship final and Qatar won on both occasions (27:26 in 2014 and 27:22 in 2016). Bahrain actually won only one of these six last head-to-heads, and it was in a friendly game played in November 2015 (31:25).
Bahrain are, with Brazil, the team that has scored the fewest amount of goals after match day one (16 goals scored against Sweden). The Asian side is also the team that has scored the fewest goals from open play (14). After match day one, Qatar and Bahrain have the worst ratio for wing shots scored. Bahrain didn’t score yet in this position (0/2) and Qatar scored only one wing shot during the loss against Egypt (1/5).