Croatia came back in the 2nd half to take the lead against Norway after trailing 12-10 at the break, but could not find a goal in the last five minutes of the match which would ultimately lead to an extra time session with the match notched up at 22-22 after 60 minutes.
But what happened at the end of regulation was true drama. Croatia was awarded a penalty with no time left on the clock. Veteran Zlatko Horvat stepped up to the penalty line knowing that one flick of his arm would send Croatia to the World Handball championship game to face giants France in Paris. But it just wasn’t meant to be. Horvat had his shot blocked and it was all she wrote even though the Croatian side started hoy in extra time.
Croatia would score two quick goals in the extra 10-minute session but would crumble after the fact, letting Norway go on a 6-1 scoring run to end the game. The match would end 28-25 which will send Croatia to the bronze medal match Saturday versus Slovenia. They will have to be extremely disappointed as they had their chances at the end of the game, and even in extra time, to play France in the final.
Horvat gets his end-of-the-game penalty blocked
Kovac took over the E. Frankfurt job from Bundesliga championship winning coach Armin Veh, even if Eintracht were 8th it would be better than the relegation zone where the Bundesliga championship winning coach Armin Veh had them. The backline at Eintracht is pretty much the same as what Veh had at his disposal, they conceded 52 goals last season, this season 15, this is all because of Niko’s coaching quality. Other highlights for my team the Eagles are our draw against Bayern and our great win against Dortmund!
I think it’s obvious now that Kovac’s run with the NT ended badly because of issues with Modric. Before Modric created a bad environment in the locker room things were going well.
In defense of kovac, he lost only 3 games as Croatian coach. A bogus loss to Brazil, a disappointing result top Mexico, and a let down against Norway. Although i will say i thought he made a big mistake with playing both rakitic and modric so deep. Cacic has had some flaws (terrible substitution), but he’s been much more focused on unlocking the potential of those two
^^^^^^^^^
That and
He definitely can not coach/manage properly. Bundesliga is slightly disappointing so far, dime a dozen can be in that position, they’re 3 points off 7th, you surely wouldn’t be saying that if they were 8th on the table. And my friend you made my point, he’s doing such a great job with those players you mentioned; why wasn’t he able to do a Job with us, we surely have a better team than Frankfurt, no?
If anything each pregame talk is a motivational speech bunch of yelling Uber this uber that, they’re riding a high let’s see how it goes
I don’t think anyone here watches Eintracht Frankfurt games to make a fair assessment of how well he coaches.
Based off of his player selections, formations and in game substitutions for the National Team… he was our second worst coach ever (behind Igor Štimac).
Glad to see he’s doing well at Frankfurt, but we don’t have any context behind the positive results. He may just be one of those good motivator coaches who shares the same hardworking German mentality of his Bundesliga players. Completely different situation than being a National Team coach.
@Idemo
You must be talking about his run with the NT when you say Niko “can’t coach,” surely you’d say he’s doing a great coaching job at Eintracht Frankfurt?
Or you might think with the addition of world class talent like Mascarella, Vallejo, Hrgota and Rebic that regardless of who the coach is they were always gonna rocket up the table?
he can’t coach.
Great win by Eintracht Frankfurt, 3rd in the Bundesliga as we speak!
All the people that said Niko Kovac couldn’t coach put your hand up?
Mental midget????? Nahhhhhh
Terrible decision to let horvat pull rank and take it….his first 7m shot was terrible just luckily off the post and in
Mandalinic should have took it
Croatia is eliminated.
So sad to see. This was the first Croatian game I’ve seen without my father who died January 10. Lets hope they bounce back.
Can’t get any of the links to work – very frustrating.
@Ante
WOW Setanta. Thing brings me back in a hot tub time machine. I remember those days. When we had to pay $20 to get into the Dom to watch qualifier. Ahhh the good ol days.
I might be old but does anybody remember when all Croatian games were on HRT2? Before that Setanta?
https://youtu.be/v63mHA0YTmo
A little something to get you hyped, for all us bandwagon handball fans 🙂
boys the best streams are at https://www.batmanstream.com …..well the best free ones anyways