Croatia cut it close in the second half after a 6-goal deficit at halftime but it wasn’t enough to grab a point against World Champions France. The French would remain undefeated in the tournament, defeating Croatia 30-27 on home soil to oust the Cowboys from the Euro Handball tournament. Croatia will now play in the 5th place game against the Czech Republic on Friday, the 26th.
It all comes down to this for the Croatian Cowboys. They will play a must-win game. In Zagreb. Against the reigning World Handball champions- France.
And a semifinal berth at the 2018 Euro handball championships is on the line.
There’s a few other scenarios that could get Croatia by to the final four, but for all intents and purposes, they will need to beat France by a larger margin than Sweden beats Norway; if in fact that happens.
France is the only perfect team left at the tournament; going 5-0 with a +30 goal differential in those game. (The win against Austria in the preliminary group does not carry over.)
Although Sweden and Croatia are tied on points, Sweden already beat Croatia and own the tiebreaker. Sweden will play Norway before the France match Wednesday night and Croatians will be rooting for a Norwegian result in that match. If Sweden lose, Croatia would only need a draw against the French. Or if Sweden draws, a Croatia win will get them through.
The Croatia-France match starts at 2:30PM (ET).
@Lika Joey & Dubrovcan,respect all Croatian athletes! You stupid YUGOVIC!
@Lika Joey, respect all Croatian athletes! You stupid YUGOVIC!
Well Dubrovcan is probably a yugo since people from Dubrovnik never care about the national team in any sport
@Dubrovcan
“Handball is an irrelevant sport. The sports gives our country absolutely zero media attention in the grand scheme of things”
So it received zero media attention in England?
If the sport got media attention in England then you’d love it ya pom, but, because England can’t put together more than one good sporting team (soccer), Handball is irrelevant in England.
Croatia on the other hand is good at Soccer, Basketball, Handball (2× Olympic gold medalists) and Waterpolo, so more sports are relevant in Croatia than in your country England.
I watch the Croatian news and it received plenty of media attention. The sport is relevant to Croats, not to Englishmen.
Anonymous you really are a 24 carat plonker. I also have nothing to do with yugoslavia either nor do I want to associate myself with the other nations in any way. That has absolutely nothing to do with not liking handball. Lika Joey is entirely correct. Handball is an irrelevant sport. The sports gives our country absolutely zero media attention in the grand scheme of things. The only one that is sounding like a commie dictator bitch is you by removing the freedom of the above to express themselves because “it offends the country and the players playing for our country.. disgrace etc”. Listen to yourself. You sound like Kim Jong Un geeze. Go buy some bitcoin or something. Its 2018!
You may not like handball, but the sport is more popular in Croatia than basketball. Go back and look at the attendance for Croatia when we hosted opening round games for Eurobasket and then look at the attendance for handball.
The coach fucked up. He kept pulling the goalie to play 6 guys on offense and they scored 6+ points throwing the ball into an open net. I was so fucking pissed last night. 🙁
Handball is pretty relevant in europe
Anonymous fair enough! But to call me a Yugoslavian is very amusing. Don’t be a pussy and use a username. I respect that this is a dialogue about handball. The biggest moment in Croatian sports for years happened this sat. Handball is like table tennis who cares.
@Lika Joey
This is a Handball post, the only thing irrelevant here is your comment, it doesn’t belong here.
If you don’t like the sport that’s fair enough, but to hang shit on our Croatian atheltes that play this sport by calling it irrelevant is an absolute disgrace.
Henceforth I will consider you a Yugoslavian and will pay no attention to your irrelevant comments. I would also appreciate if you do not respond to my comment because I have no desire to engage in a dialogue with a person of your kind.
Handball is an irrelevant sport! Miocic won!!! We have nothing to be upset about.
Handball and Waterpolo would be better if there wasn’t a tournament every single year.
The sting of this loss to our arch rivals France will be felt until we probably play them again later this year in yet another tournament
Homo sport anyway. Bring on the WC followed by England and Spain at the UEFA nations! Idemo
Not looking good
mental midget syndrom kicking in with the c0wboys
we can lose by 2
yugo
Norway will probably beat Sweden. But we still have to beat France because of that damn tie breaker.
Nobody’s drawing with anybody.