Croatia headed into Sunday’s clash with Austria as clear favorites. The Cowboys had lit up last Euro’s runners-up — Spain — in a thrilling 39-29 victory. Croatia’s attack was ruthless against Spain on Friday but faced a far stiffer opponent in Austria. So far this tournament, Goran Perkovac and Croatia’s main strategy has been quick transition handball. Croatia opened the match doing just that, starting the game off with a quick 5-1 lead over the Austrians. However, as the match went on, Croatia realized that Austria’s defense was beginning to slow down their attack. Entering the half, Croatia maintained a 14-12 lead and looked comfortable and likely to emulate the same 2nd half resurgence that happened against Spain. What ended up happening was the opposite, Croatia and Austria for most of the 2nd half, were locked in a back and forth battle for the lead. Whenever one side managed to take a lead it would quickly slip away thanks to a short run from the other side. Croatia seemingly got the upper hand taking a 28-25 lead with five minutes left, however, they let Austria claw their way back despite having multiple opportunities to put a nail in the coffin. Croatia managed to stay level with Austria in the final minute of the game despite having a clear chance to win, possessing both the ball for the entire minute and having a man advantage.
On a positive note, Croatia had numerous stand out players. Mario Šoštarić had another excellent game with 6 goals tonight, building off the 8 he had on Friday against Spain. Veron Načinović was excellent as well with 5 goals, a promising showing from the 23 year old Pivot who currently plays for Montpellier in France. Another youngster, Luka Lovre Klarica from RK Zagreb had his second good night of the tournament with 3 goals and an assist. However, the stand out player for Croatia came in the form of the goalkeeper, Matej Mandić, who had 10 saves in the game and a 32% save rate. He made many crucial saves that otherwise could have seen Austria win the game and take a commanding lead over the group.
Despite seeming like a bad result, Croatia fans should not worry yet. Croatia still sits 1st place in group, with their final match against Romania on Tuesday. While Austria will battle against reigning runners-up Spain, Croatia will face off against a Romanian side who have yet to put up a serious threat against anyone this tournament. Croatia is 3-0 against Romania, having never won by less than five goals against them. As long as Croatia win against Romania, their ticket to the main round in the Euros will be punched. With that said, tying Austria is not ideal, but there is no need to press the panic button yet.
It was not a good performance; however, I expect Spain to beat Austria and us to win against Romania. This would mean that we will come first and Spain second in the group with us carrying forward 2 points and + 10 goal difference into the next round of matches against France, host Germany, Hungary and Iceland or Serbia. Spain will be there as well but with no points to start with.
First two from this group progress to the semi finals. France as always will be very tough but against the other teams we have a good chance.
Agreed – should be fine, obviously would have been better to win, but now we need to root for Spain to knock out Austria, as heading into the next stage with the win v Spain carrying over as opposed to the draw v Austria is a massive difference. Put simply, if Austria eliminate Spain, it’s unlikely Croatia will be able to medal