Handball World Cup
Frimmel: “Our dream is the quarter-finals”
The Austrian handball men's World Championship quarter-final dream has been shattered. Despite a strong first half, the understrength ÖHB team was beaten 26:29 (13:12) by the favored Hungarians in the second main round match in Varazdin on Thursday.
This means that Austria no longer has a chance of finishing second in main round group 2 and the final game against the Netherlands on Saturday will be all about the ranking.
In front of a Hungarian-dominated crowd, Austria built up a 4:2 lead after a false start with a 4:0 run, but had to let Hungary close the gap to 4:4 within two minutes (9th minute). While goalkeeper Florian Kaiper, this time called upon from the start, provided strong support, the shooting percentage in offense left something to be desired. However, they benefited several times from mistakes by the tall Hungarians when building up play and the game remained tight for the time being.
The favorites, fifth in the last European Championship, visibly showed nerves. Almost every ball found its way into the net at the front, while Kaiper continued to shine at the back, with an impressive 39% catch rate at the break. The highly intense duel swung back in the Red-White-Red's favor when they took a three-goal lead for the first time (11:8/23), which should have been enough for a 13:12 lead at the break. However, this was short-lived: Ten minutes after the restart, Hungary had pulled two goals clear at 18:16 and for the first time since the opening spell.
Austria collapse in the second half
As the final quarter of an hour had already begun, Austria had to pay tribute to the high tempo without the injured regular players Mykola Bilyk, Janko Bozovic and Boris Zivkovic. They struggled up front - now also in 7:6 superior numbers - and their defense was no longer able to stop the Hungarian attacks so well.
The 25:21 goal scored into the empty net with six-and-a-half minutes remaining was a kind of preliminary decision. While Jakob Nigg missed the chance on the counter-attack at 22:25 and Jozsef Albek was handed a two-minute penalty, the opponents took a 26:22 lead for the last four and a half minutes and played it out over time.
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