Bahrain falls to Denmark

TDT | Manama                                                

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com     

Bahrain’s under-21 national handball team suffered a tough 22-28 loss to their counterparts from Denmark last night in the 24th IHF Men’s Junior World Championship 2023, currently being hosted by Greece and Germany. 

The Bahrainis put in a valiant effort against their heavily favoured opponents, but could not match the European giants.

The fixture was the last for the nationals in Group III of the tournament’s main round, which they finished with a winless record in three games.

Their loss to Sweden in the preliminary stage was carried over to this phase while they also fell to Hungary in their previous contest.

Both Hungary and Denmark advanced to the quarter-finals, while Sweden and Bahrain will compete for a final ranking between ninth and 16th. The Bahrainis will take on Egypt in their next match, scheduled to take place tomorrow.

The Egyptians finished third in Group IV of the main round, thus also missing out on a berth in the last eight.

The nationals will then have their concluding placement assignment on Thursday.

Despite completing the main stage with three losses, the Bahrainis are already ensured of their best finish in the junior worlds, having been classified 17th overall the previous two times they played in the tournament in the 1995 and 2019 editions.

In last night’s defeat, the nationals fell behind early and faced a 7-16 deficit at the end of the first half.

They tried hard to battle back and narrowed the gap to five late in the concluding 30 minutes, but could not threaten their rivals any further en route to the final whistle.

Mohamed Rabia finished as Bahrain’s top scorer with eight goals, while Abdulla Ali had six.

Jassim Khamis finished with three goals, while Ahmed Alzain and Husan Saleh each contributed two.

The Bahrainis’ scoresheet was rounded out by Komail Ali’s single goal in the game.

The Danes had a balanced attack, with Marinus Grandahl Munk and Christian Termansen leading the way with four goals apiece.

Joining Hungary and Denmark in the quarter-finals were Iceland, Portugal, the Faroe Islands, Germany, Croatia and Serbia.

Other teams alongside Bahrain, Sweden and Egypt in the ninth-to-16th classification were France, Brazil, Tunisia, Spain and Greece.

The remaining teams who did not advance to the main round are in the consolation pools where they will play for the President’s Cup.

They include Poland, Algeria, Libya, the US, Kuwait, Japan, Angola, Costa Rica, Slovenia, Norway, Argentina, Greenland, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Chile.