Greece – Croatia 26-31: The national team lost to the superior Croatians

While the men’s national handball team played excellently against the mighty Croatians in one half, the Croatians found more solutions in the second half and won 31-26.

Our representative group stayed on 6 points and will host the Netherlands in Almere on the 6th and final day of the qualifying phase (30 April, 7:00 p.m.).

While Greece were defeated, the other group results were particularly favorable as Georgia, Turkey and Slovakia failed to score points at home and fell behind Greece in the Group 3 special classification.

The national team… faced 20-medal superpower Croatia, forcing them into a passive role for the longest in the first half (10-10), with Bukovina in great shape.

In the second half, Croatia’s experience combined with the quality of Barcelona playmaker Luka Cidric tip the scales in their favor as Greece scored more goals in attack but didn’t have the same image in defense.

Greece – Croatia 31-26

The five minutes: 1-2, 5-4, 6-4, 6-5, 8-7, 10-10 (m), 12-14, 15-17, 18-20, 20-24, 23-26, 26-31

GREECE (Zaravinas): Liapis 5, Mylonas 4, Mallios, Passias, Toskas 3, Bukovinas, Papavasilis, Tziras 5, Kandylas, Papadionisiou 1, Kritikos, Tsanaxidis, Arabatzis 2, Papantonopoulos, Savvas 6.

CROATIA (Perkovac): Kuzmanovic, Duvniak 2, Sostaric 5, Stepancic 2, Sarac 5, Maras 3, Nacinovic 2, Cidric 10, Brozovic, Ivankovic, Madic, Lucin, Sipic 2, Sego, Glavas, Jelinic.

Referee: Novotny-Horacek (Czech Republic)

Observer: Ribel (France), Two minutes: 5-5, Penalties: 3/3-4/4.