The last day of the 2018 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship in Kazan, Russia, sees three familiar faces in the final two matches, with debutants Sweden looking to grab a medal on their first appearance.
2018 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship
Sunday 29 July
Final/Gold: Croatia vs Brazil – 1800hrs (local time)
Budapest, Hungary was the setting in 2016 when Croatia took the world title, defeating the dominant Brazilians who had won the previous three editions and four of the previous five in 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2014 with the 2008 defeat by the Croats their only two final losses.
To say that Brazil and Croatia are both the dominant teams in men’s beach handball is not an understatement, certainly historically they are – as only two of the three teams in either the men’s or women’s game who have appeared at all eight editions since the world championships started back in 2004.
Brazil are not only the Pan-American champions but also the World Games champions, having beaten Croatia in the final last July, 2-1 but they are yet to meet in Kazan.
Croatia won their semi-final easily against Hungary last night, while Brazil beat Sweden by the same score and with a wealth of incredible players who top the scoring and defensive charts, fans in the arena and watching online or on TV are in for a treat of the very best beach handball in the world.
“Every time it feels better and better,” said Croatian captain Ivan Juric who has scored 122 points at Kazan 2018. “It’s moments like this why I play sport. We are very self-confident, focussed and full of faith in ourselves because we want to give the best of ourselves on court – and of course we will try to win.
“When you do something like sport, you try and be the best we can and that’s our motto – we like to make people happy who cheers for us. There’s a lot of pride because we are a small country, other countries are bigger and have a bigger selection of players for the national team and maybe we put more effort in than other countries, I don’t know – but one thing is for sure, we hate to lose.”
3/4 Placement Match/Bronze: Hungary vs Sweden – 1600hrs (local time)
In their first-ever world championship, Sweden have been one of the big stories, having made it all the way to a medal match, defeating finalists Brazil in the preliminary round. But their progress is just the continuation of the evolution of a side who finished fifth at the EHF EURO 2017 and are now set to become a regular feature at the top table of beach handball.
Hungary on the other hand have finished fourth in the last three major competitions – the World Games 2017, EHF EURO 2017 and Budapest 2016 and will be desperate to go one extra step higher and make it to the podium.
Final Day Results:
Placement Match 5/6: Russia vs Spain 0:2 (14:23) (22:23)
Spain confirmed their place at the 2019 Beach Games in San Diego as they took a two-set win over hosts Russia.
Placement Match 7/8: Iran vs Denmark 0:2 (14:21) (20:23)
Placement Match 9/10: Qatar vs Oman 2:1 (18:10) (11:12) [9:6 SO]
Placement Match 11/12: USA vs Argentina 1:2 (24:16) (18:22) [4:7 SO]
Placement Match 13/14: Vietnam vs Australia 0:2 (12:16) (10:20)
Placement Match 15/16: New Zealand vs Uruguay 0:2 (18:21) (20:23)
For a full ranking list of Kazan 2018 click HERE.