The Brazilian men’s team qualified for the second phase of the Men’s Handball World Cup by beating the United States 31-24, in Oslo (Norway), this Sunday (19). The country advanced in second place in Group E, with two victories, behind only the Portuguese team, leader of the group, with 100% success in the three matches. Norway secured third place, and the USA said goodbye to the competition, with three consecutive defeats.
Brazil returns to the court next Wednesday (22), against one of the three classified in Group F – the opponent will be defined at the end of this Sunday’s games (19). The bracket already has two qualified teams: Sweden and Spain, which emerge as favorites for the title. The third place is still up for grabs between Chile and Japan.
The Brazilian team entered the court under pressure, after the setback suffered last Friday (17), when they were beaten by Portugal 26 to 30. Today only victory mattered. In the first half of today’s match, the team failed in defense and attacked less than they could have. Brazil only opened the scoring after six minutes, with Rudolph Hackbarth and saw the North Americans, with no handball tradition, take a 4-1 lead. The Brazilians still managed to react and turn the score to 6-5, but performance fell again and the USA went into the break leading the team 12-10.
In the second stage, the team led by coach Marcus Tatá returned to the court with more speed and began to launch counterattacks. Eight minutes into the game, he turned the score around and began to dictate the pace of the game until sealing the victory and classification. Among the best performances on the Brazilian side were Rudolph, the team’s top scorer, who scored eight goals today, and Joel with seven goals,
“We need to congratulate the United States for the first half. They did very well. I believe Brazil felt a little anxious in the first part of the match. We couldn’t stop their attack and we had a lot of difficulty on the court, especially in the transition to attack”, analyzed coach Marcus Tatá. “In the second half, we defended better. We managed to score some counterattack goals that gave us the victory. It was a very important result due to the circumstances of the match and the need to win to remain in the competition without depending on other results”, concluded the coach.
The Handball World Cup started with 32 teams in the first phase, divided into eight groups of four teams each. Only the top three in each group will go to the second phase – also in group format (there will be four brackets with six teams each). From then on, the two best teams in each group will guarantee a place in the quarter-finals (knockout). The title decision is scheduled for February 2, in Oslo (Norway).
