Bahrain set for tough test at handball worlds

TDT | Manama                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com   

Bahrain take on the US today to kick off their campaign in the main round of the 28th International Handball Federation (IHF) Men’s Handball World Championship, being co-hosted by Poland and Sweden.

Both teams are in Group IV in this stage of the competition alongside defending world champions Denmark, Egypt, Croatia and Belgium.

The Bahrainis’ results from the preliminaries against the Danes and Belgians carry over to this phase, thus the nationals have just three games to play.

Their clash with the Americans this evening is scheduled for a 5.30pm start, Bahrain time.

The Bahrainis advanced to this stage after winning against the Belgians on Tuesday night—a result that is now counted on their main round standing.

The US lost their games against Egypt and Croatia and head into their head-to-head with Bahrain with zero wins on the Group IV table.

There are 24 nations in all that have advanced to this stage.

They have been divided into four groups of six, with only the top two teams from each group advancing to the quarterfinals.

Following Bahrain’s game today against the Americans, they then play Egypt on Saturday before closing out their main round schedule on Monday against Croatia.

All Group IV games are set to be played at Malmo Arena in the Swedish city of Malmo.

It is only the second time in the national teams’ five appearances in the worlds that they are competing in this phase.

Group I features Spain, France, Slovenia, Montenegro, Poland and Iran. Group II includes Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Hungary, Brazil and Cape Verde; while Group III consists of Norway, Germany, Serbia, the Netherlands, Qatar and Argentina. Bahrain head coach Aron Kristjansson from Iceland has 19 players for the worlds.

They include long-time skipper Hussain Al Sayyad, Mohammed Mirza, Ali Mirza, Jassim Al Salatna, Mohammed Abdulhussain, Mohammed Habib Mohammed, Ali Eid, Hasan Alsamaheeji, Ahmed Fadhul, Mohammed Ali, Hassan Mirza, Komail Mahfoodh, Hesham Ahmed Isa, Qassim Qambar, Abdulla Alzaimoor, Mujtaba Alzaimoor, Mahmood Hussain Mohammed, Muntadher Ebrahim Ali and Abdulla Ali.