The Peninsula
Asian champions Qatar have vowed to put up a strong fight against European giants Sweden when the two sides clash in the quarter-final of the 27th IHF Men’s Handball World Championship in Cairo today.
Al Annabi reached the last-8 stage of the global event after finishing second in the Group II, topped by defending champions Denmark.
Today’s quarter-final that will start at 10:30pm (Qatar time) is expected to be another thriller for Qatar, who defeated Argentina 26-24 in their last group match to book last-8 spot.
Qatar’s pivot Youssef Benali yesterday termed Sweden game tough but promised all-out effort from his side.
“Sweden are a big team and they are one of the teams who could win the World Championship title, so we will face a tough opponent,” Benali said yesterday.
“We will fight until the final second of the game against Sweden to snatch a place in the tournament’s semi-finals,” the Qatari star said.
“The tournament is difficult especially in presence of a big number of teams for the first time alongside lack of preparation due to coronavirus pandemic,” he added.
Qatar’s Franklin Marzo – the leading scorer in the tournament so far with 53 goals – will be team’s main hope in the quarter-final but Sweden will come up with a special plan to avoid damage from the goal-scoring machine.
“We need to be aggressive like we have been most of the games. We need to get into positions where Frankis Marzo doesn’t get too comfortable but we have to accept that there are some players like him who will just score some goals no matter what,” Sweden’s talismanic scorer Hampus Wanne told Egypt 2021’s website yesterday.
He said one of the pre-event favourites Sweden were not looking beyond the last-8 stage as all their focus is on today’s clash.
“We need to focus on Qatar, we can’t talk about a final now because it’s too far. We need to take things game by game and not think too much about the future,” said Wanne.
Meanwhile, Sweden’s keeper Andreas Palicka praised Marzo’s performance.
“Frankis is a great player who’s doing really well in this tournament, we are preparing for Qatar though as we do for each opponent. There are a few things we are preparing for and obviously Frankis is one of them. We build a defence where we feel secure, I’m pretty sure we can make it difficult for them,” he said.
Two non-European teams to show up in last-8 for the first time since 1999
After finishing the main round games of the 27th IHF Men’s Handball World Championship - Egypt 2021, two non-European teams have reached the quarterfinals for the first time in the tournament’s history since the 1999 edition that also took place in Egypt.
African champions Egypt and Asian champions Qatar have marched on in the World Championship after booking their places in the quarter-finals alongside six European teams, Denmark, Norway, Spain, France, Sweden and Hungary.
The quarter-final games witness a tough competition between top flight teams after title holders of World Championship, Denmark and the tournament’s runners up in the last two editions Norway alongside European Champions Spain all reached to the hot spot.