Thanks to their third straight victory El-Jaish took the fifth place at the IHF Super Globe. The Qataris only had problems in the first 35 minutes to tame their Brazilian opponent Metodista, then the individual class of their European players decided the game.

 

Placement match 5/6: Metodista Sao Bernardo (BRA) – El-Jaish (QAT) 23:31 (13:15)

Though all professional players from Europe were on the field in contrast to their first placement match against Sydney, El-Jaish were not able to dominate the first half and were away only with a two goal margin against the Brazilians. Intermediately the distance had been four goals. Metodista cleverly made their way through the El-Jaish defence, but the only problem they had was to stop the more experienced and more skillful attackers of the Qatari team.

The second half started tenacious, as both teams reduced the speed after five matches in six days. Both sides were tired, with El-Jaish using their professional players nearly all the time. But in the end the Qataris were more successful in man-against-man-actions, providing them with a quite comfortable 25:19 cushion in the middle of the second half. And when Nikola Manojlovic scored a double-strike to 27:20 the match had been decided in minute 50. Later the Qatari players of El-Jaish were able to their strength.

But finally their club – the army team of Qatar – was not satisfied with their final position. Two opening defeats against Madrid and Zamalek had eliminated the Qataris from the semifinal spot early. But finishing fifth with three straight final victories means something like a happy-end for coach Ivica Obrvan and his team. Metodista took one victory in the placement round against Mudhar and lost four matches – including two defeats against El-Jaish in the preliminary round and their final placement match.

 

Statements after the match:

Vladimir Jelcic, assistant coach El-Jaish: We are happy to finish this tournament with a victory. The key was that we had more powers than Metodista, as they had a much tougher match yesterday.

Lovren Sprem, player El-Jaish: A few days ago the preliminary round game against Metodista was tougher, but even today we had to give 100% to win. We have to be happy with the fifth place, as it was our goal to reach the semifinal – but we missed this objective against Zamalek.

Jose Ronaldo Nascimento, coach Metodista: Again this match was a good opportunity to face the best players of the world, but after five matches we are really tired, as me missed some rotation options due to injuries. Aside we had a very tough game yesterday to beat Mudhar.

Carlos Castillo, player Metodista: It was a tough game like the ones before. We did not play well in attack, so El-Jaish took the profit by a big number of counter-attack goals. In the end I am happy with the sixth place, even as our expectations before the tournament had been higher. But finally we are happy that we had the opportunity to learn and improve.