From statistical point of view, Slovenia currently is the second best
team at the Men’s Junior World Championship. By beating Serbia in the placement
match on Saturday (27 July), they took their eighth victory in
Bosnia-Herzegovina like finalist Sweden the day before. But as Sweden is
unbeaten and fights for gold, Slovenia had lost one match – unluckily their
opener of the knock-out stage against Brazil in the eighth-final. Finally the
Slovenians finished on ninth rank. Germany had beaten Hungary in another
All-European placement match.
Placement match 11/12:
Germany – Hungary 28:27 (17:12)
Boosted by the goals of initially brilliant left wing Matthias Musche
and a strong defence, the Germans easily forged ahead to 10:4, before the
Hungarians stopped the downswing. Loudly supported by a Hungarian fans, they
bridged the gap to intermediately only three goals at 10:13, as the Germans had
problems in scoring in this period. But at the break the distance again was
five goals. Despite the hammer goals from the German back court, and though
they missed two penalty shots against German goalkeeper Felix Storbeck in a
short time, the Hungarians did not surrender early. And with two players more
on the court, they grabbed their chance to reduce an intermediate seven goals
gap to only 19:23. But that seemed to be the end of their catch-up chase
already: As Storbek improved and the Hungarians caused more technical mistakes
than before, the Germans managed to keep a clear distance until the 25:19. But
the roller coaster turned again: As Germany received a huge number of two
minute suspensions, Hungary reduced goal by goal-and suddenly everything was
open again from 26:25 on. 25 seconds before the end at the score of 28:27,
Patrick Schmidt not only caused a turnover, but received a red card after
attacking the Hungarian goalkeeper. Hungary had the last attack – but failed to
score. Best scorers were Balasz Szollosi with eight goals for Hungary and
Musche and Simon Ernst by five goals each for Germany.
Placement match 9/10:
Serbia – Slovenia 30:33
(12:15)
Slovenia was constantly in lead from minute ten until the halftime
buzzer. Their back court shooters were unstoppable by the Serbian defence, and
at 13:9 the gap was four goals for the first time. At the break the Serbs still
were down by three, but arrived much more focus and passionate on the court.
While the Slovenians had problems to score, Serbia – led by Bogdan Radivojevic
– scored a 5:0 series to turn the match at 17:15. The Slovenians had lost their
rhythm and were too far away from the Serbs in defence – but finally stopped
their downswing by a 8:3 series and were again away by three goals at 23:20.
Serbia countered to 24:24 –and the match had become a private duel of the top
shooters of both teams: The equalizer was the sixth of goal of Radivojevic, but
Slovenian Mario Sostaric stroke back: His eighth of ten goals was the 25:24,
and thanks to his double strike Slovenia again forged ahead to three goals at
29:26. But though Radivojevic added in total eight goals on his tally, his team
lost – and latest was beaten at 29:32 three minutes before the end.
Final ranking 9 - 24:
9.
Slovenia
10.
Serbia
11.
Germany
12.
Hungary
13.
Denmark
14.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
15.
Tunisia
16.
Argentina
17.
Russia
18.
Korea
19.
Qatar
20.
Kuwait
21.
Angola
22.
Congo
23.
Chile
24.
Algeria