With their first victory in the Olympic qualification tournament in Hanover, Austria’s handball players are still in the race for a ticket to Paris.
Two days after the opening defeat against Croatia, Mykola Bilyk and Co. won confidently against Algeria with 41:26 (20:13) on Saturday and now have their hoped-for final on Sunday (2:10 p.m. in the LIVE ticker>>>). against hosts Germany.
Before that, he helped the Croatians to qualify successfully with a 30:33 defeat.
This brings back memories of the most recent European Championship in January, also in Germany, when Austria wrested a 22:22 from the home team, but missed out on a win in the end. The eighth-placed team in the European Championship now has to make up for this on Sunday; a draw would not be enough due to the slightly worse goal difference (Germany 71:62, Austria 70:61).
Early decision against Algeria
It’s only exciting in the opening minutes against Algeria at the ZAG Arena. Despite a not flawless start, Austria had the reins firmly in hand from the first lead, 3-2 in the fifth minute.
The game was actually over after the 8:3 (10th) at the latest, even if Africa’s runner-up sniffed it out again to 7:9 (15th). Lukas Hutecek’s team picked up the pace again, were in the lead by six goals for the first time three minutes later and from then on they didn’t allow their opponents to gain any decisive ground.
Team boss Ales Pajovic makes a change before the break in view of the shortest possible recovery time before the Germany game, Markus Mahr in the backcourt is also gaining more experience, as are Eric Damböck and Jakob Nigg on the wing. It was the latter who increased the score to plus 7 for the first time with the final whistle of the first half.
A single goal that could hurt
After the restart, Austria also successfully practiced the 7:6 powerplay. The distance remains constant for the time being because Algeria keeps scoring easy goals. The North Africans, who were defeated by Germany 29:41 at the start, are miles away from a turnaround.
Only in the finish does the Algerian resistance come to a standstill and the ÖHB selection continues to expand its plus account goal by goal with many bench players.
It was almost enough to overtake Germany in terms of goal difference, but a few seconds before the end they conceded the decisive goal in this regard.
Mykola Bilyk: The card trickster among the handball stars
What do you think of this article?