Handball Team Close to Quarterfinals by Beating Austria

The Hungarian men’s handball team took a big step towards achieving their goal of reaching the quarterfinals of the World Championship by beating Austria 29-26 in the second round of the semifinals in Varazdin (Croatia) on Thursday evening.

The Hungarians finished the group stage with two wins and a draw, losing 37-30 to European champions France in the semifinals on Tuesday, and will face Qatar on Saturday. The top two finishers will reach the last eight. A draw against Quatar tomorrow should be enough for the Hungarian side to finish runners-up.

The national team went into Thursday’s game knowing that a win would be a big step towards the last eight, but a loss would mean no qualification.

Hungary’s attacking play was not working against a defensive wall at the start of the game, with the Austrians repeatedly winning the ball and scoring from a rush or Florian Kaiper making a bravura save. Thanks to Kristóf Palasics’ spectacular saves, Hungary held on to the draw, although the change of quarterback did not help them in attack.

The goals of Rodríguez Álvarez Pedro prevented the opponents from pulling away, but at 11-8 down, Chema Rodríguez, the Hungarian team’s head coach, called a time-out. The Austrians were well prepared for the match, especially in defense.

Bence Bánhidi (L) and Lukas Hutecek. Photo: MTI/Illyés Tibor

The Hungarians could not cope with the defensive wall, their crosses did not lead to any results, and they made a lot of mistakes in the field.

Despite this, they were only one goal down at the break.

Zoltán Szita took the lead again in the 35th minute (15-14), Palasics made some saves again and the Austrians started to attack without a goalkeeper and with a man advantage. This was the tactic they used to beat Hungary in the semifinal of last year’s European Championship, but it was not effective this time.

Lukas Herburger and Zoltán Tisza (L-R). Photo: MTI/Illyés Tibor

In the 49th minute, Hungary had a three-goal lead for the first time. Thanks to an effective defense with seven against six, Adrián Sipos and his team went on a 4-1 run, while the opponents seemed to get tired and started to make more and more mistakes. The match was decided with two and a half minutes to go by Rodríguez’s eighth goal.