Brazilian side Taubate have expectedly reached the 5/6 placement match of the IHF Super Globe to take place on Friday in Doha, Qatar. The Pan-American club champion beat Oceania representative Sydney University on Thursday (29 August) clearly by 28:14 (11:6). The Australians now will try to take their first ever victory in the IHF Super Globe history in the 7/8 placement matches. The competitors of both will be decided in the second placement round match, the All-Qatari duel Al-Sadd vs. Al-Rayyan.

Placement round:

Sydney University (AUS) – Taubate (BRA) 14:28 (6:11)

The first half was the clearly best performance of Sydney University in this competition. Mostly the Australian “students” managed to avoid the famous Taubate counter-attacks and got the chances to score. On the other side, Taubate goalkeeper Maik Santos again saved brilliant – but his team mates could not cast off their competitor as expected. Sydney did not allow Sydney to march away, being down only by four or five goals in the first half.

And in the beginning of the second half the “Aussies” were backed by the saves of German born goalkeeper Stephan Pfeiffer – but were not able to score as easily as before the break though they waited patiently for their chances.

So Taubate extended the gap slowly but determined to eight goals for the first time at 16:8 in minute 40 and caused the first double-figured result in minute 47 when the score was 20:10. But the decision had been taken much earlier.

Statements after the match:

Marcus Oliveira, coach Taubate: The beginning was tough for us, as Sydney played with a good defence. In the end the counter attacks decided the match.

Guilherme Oliveira, player Taubate: We did not play well in the first half, but finally we reached the expected result. Tomorrow we will fight for the fifth place, regardless the opponent.

Philipp Enders, coach Sydney: Taubate are trained very well, as they at least have five to seven training sessions per week – in contrast to my team. I was pleased with the first half, as it was an improvement to the previous games. But after the break the fact was taking its toll that we are not used to have four matches in five days on a highly competitive level. But in general I am satisfied, but my players are really tired.

Thomas Gerstch, player Sydney: We keep on improving and learning from our mistakes. The whole tournament is a great experience for us. On Friday we will fully focus on our main target to return home with a victory.