Qatar team celebrate after their win over Slovenia in their Group A match of the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship which was held here at the Lusail Multipurpose Arena yesterday. Picture: Anas al-Samaraee

 

By Yash Mudgal/Doha


Hosts Qatar stunned Slovenia in a thriller to reach pre-quarterfinals of the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship at Lusail Multipurpose Arena yesterday.
In a dramatic finish Qatar handed Slovenia, who finished fourth in the last edition of the championship, their first defeat in the championship (31-29).
This is Qatar’s second entry in the pre-quarterfinals after 12 years. Qatar lost to Spain 15-40 in 2003 edition of the championship in the last 16 stage.
“I am very, very happy with this victory that secures our spot in pre-quarters. I think our attacking play was good today, but we won this game with our hearts and a bit with our tactics,” Qatar coach Valero Rivera said.
“We knew it would be very complicated against a team of Slovenia’s class, but this is the result of hard work of the boys,” he said.
The focus of the Group A match was supposed to be on two leading goal scorers of the tournament -- Slovenia’s right wing Dragan Gajic (24 goals in two matches) and Qatar’s right back Zarko Markovic (17 goals in two matches) -- but Qatar’s Rafel Capote’s shooting efforts stole the limelight from them.
Capote netted 12 goals in 17 attempts and in the process secured third consecutive victory for his team and a place among the last 16 of the championship.
Capote shooting efforts was also lauded by Gajic.
“He was almost unstoppable today. And I thinks he was the difference between the two teams today,” the 30-year-old right winger Gajic said.
“It was a tough game for us. Qatar played superbly today. I think they have shown more energy than us throughout the game,” the Slovenian added.
After Qatar took the lead at the start, Slovenia took their first lead at 8-7 after 12 minutes and later extended it to 10-7, before Qatar came back again in what was a rather turbulent game.
Centre back Kamalaldin Mallash was back in the Qatar team after the injury he had sustained in the opening match against Brazil, and he celebrated his comeback to the tournament in style.
He scored seven out of his team’s first 14 goals, and together with Goran Stojanovic in goal he played a great part in Qatar going back into a two goal lead shortly before half time.
Before the two teams went to their locker rooms, that lead had been increased to three, as Qatar were leading 18-15 after the first 30 minutes. From the start of the second-half, the score changed between a three goal lead for Qatar and Slovenia reducing the deficit to one goal.
It was still Qatar who had the initiative, though. They were good at shutting down the Slovenians’ dreaded counter attacks, which meant that Gajic did not play nearly is dangerous as he had been in his team’s first two matches, where he scored a total of 24 goals.
Qatar got up by five goals at 24-19, but Slovenia fought back to a one goal distance, and with five minutes left, Jure Dolenec even equalised to 28-28.
The Slovenians did not get any further, though, as three goals in a row from Qatar changed the score to 31-28, which meant that the last Slovenian goal only had cosmetic effect.
“This was a historic victory for us today. Congratulations to everyone in and around the team, without the team effort this had not been possible,” Qatar’s right back Abdullah al-Karbi said.
 “It was a difficult match against a well organised Slovenian team, which contains some of the best players in the world. However, we followed all the instructions that our coach had given us, and step by step we will go toward the championship.”
Right back Jure Dolenec scored eight goals for Slovenia.
Expressing his feeling on reaching knock-out stage Qatar goalkeeper Goran Stojanovic said: “A great result for Qatar against such a strong opponent as Slovenia, which puts us to the next round. Nobody expected us to win our first three games, we are in euphoria! Today we celebrate, but we need to bring ourselves down to earth again, since there are two more games left to finish our group games. ”
The hosts won against Brazil 28-23 on Thursday and on Saturday defeated Chile 27-20. The next two matches are against world champions Spain on January 21 and Belarus in the concluding group match on January 23. Slovenia will play Brazil on January 21 and two days later with Spain.
Croatia and Macedonia also entered the pre-quarterfinals from Group B with their victories over Iran and Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively.
Croatia won 41-22, while Macedonian won 25-22.