MASTERPIECES OF PLAY-OFF
The 20th championship was uncontestedly the best in the history of men's handball. The ideal organization and record-breaking spectator interest (even an insignificant match for 5th place gathered 18,500 witnesses!) Was supplemented by the highest intensity of the struggle. The semi-finals were “distinguished” by incredible subjects: in both Germans and Poles, in order to defeat the French and Danes, they needed most of the time and two overtime! Nothing of the kind in the annals of the world championships has been recorded before.
ECONOMIC GOLD
The semi-final climax was crowned by a worthy denouement. The German team through the thorns of the rush expectations of the country, totally ill with handball, and the errors explained by this made it to the champion title, breaking the trump cards of sensational rivals in the finals with precisely calculated tactics. Its cornerstone was a brilliant defense, and the protagonist was a two-meter Oliver Roggish, who competently collapsed the star triangle of his teammates in the Magdeburg: Karol Biletsky, Grzegosh Tkachik and Bartosh Yuretsky. Unscheduled help to him was another Magdeburger - goalkeeper Johannes Bitter. He entered the game at the beginning of the second half instead of injured Henning Fritz and spent his final segment amazingly: he repelled exactly half of the two dozen throws and made hopeless the stubborn Polish pursuit. Phenomenal luck (8 attempts - 8 goals) surprised the leftmost winners Torsten Janzen.
The boss of the Golden Bundesmannschaft, Heiner Brand, became the two-time world champion. He obtained the first title as a player of the German national team, in 1978 ... In his coaching profile, there is also a full set of awards of the continental championships, silver of the World Championship and the Olympic Games. To be completely happy, Kaiser Heiner (a freshly baked title bestowed on Brand by journalists) lacks triumph in Beijing. But the Germans have already taken a step towards him, guaranteeing themselves this participation in the Olympics without any selection.
POLISH TOP
After the immemorial bronze of the 1982 World Cup, Polish handball players qualified for the final meetings of the strongest teams of the planet only three times. But even in them they never rose above 10th place. The breakthrough that has now been successful for the team of Bogdan Venta is from the category of sudden revelations. The “representation” he collected on the basis of players from German clubs was surprisingly easily adapted on German sites and remained in the history of the tournament as the author of the only defeat of champions. The Poles effectively defeated the Germans in the preliminary group stage. A repetition of the feat in the final meeting would be too impudent abuse of probability theory ...
RUSSIAN PLACE
Domestic media and strive to poke the results of the German voyage of the national team of Vladimir Maximov under the headings “failure” and “failure”. And completely in vain. The results of the team’s performances at the top-century tournaments of the new century (in other words, after Sydney’s Olympic gold) are arranged in a rather eloquent sequence: World Cup 01 - 6th place, European Championship 02 - 5th, World Cup 03 - 5th, European Championship -04 - 5th, World Cup-05 - 8th, CHE-06 - 6th, World Cup-07 - 6th ... In such an environment, rather, the Athenian bronze looks pleasant, but an anomaly, exceeding the familiar average level .
We venture to admit that at the current tournament the Russian team even pleasantly surprised: commendable militancy and charge for a jump over his head. In any case, in our impressions until the very last game (against the Croats, for 5th place) there was not a single case when the Russians surrendered to more sophisticated rivals before the final term and stopped playing as they could.
As they know how - this is another turn of the topic, which you can’t handle with a cursory glance after the tournament. For now, be brief. You can’t keep up with modern handball by artificially hiding the national championship behind the ridiculous “iron curtain”, and at the same time depriving it of at least the semblance of competition for gold. The long-standing concentration of the heavy handball power and personnel wealth in the hands of Vladimir Maximov alone has long ceased to be a strategic advantage and has become a barrier on the way to follow the best.
The mighty-looking Russian team plays mechanical handball on the verge of the “hit-jump-shmalyi” primitive. The best coach of the planet ending the last century has ceased to be such in the coming century. It happens often. Alas, as a rule, this is noticeable only from the side ...
Handball. Men. World Championship. Final match
GERMANY - POLAND - 29:24 (17:13)
February 4th Koln. "Cologne." 19,000 viewers.
GERMANY: Fritz, Bitter (with 35 '); Hens (6), Roggish, Klein, Glandorf (2), Baur, Zeitz (3), Janzen (8/1), Klimovets (1), Kraus (4), Kermann (4), Kaufmann, Schwarzer (1).
POLAND: Schmal, Weiner (c 49 '); K. Lievski (1), Jahlevski (1), Weaver (5), Beletski (3), Sedmyak (1), Wlecklack (1), B. Jurecki (2), Jurasik (5), M. Jurecki (1) , Kuptel (1), Tluczynski (2/2), M. Lievski (1).
JUDGES: Bor, Bue (France). PENALTY TIME : 2: 6. PENALTI : 2/1: 2/2.
GAME PROGRESS: 1: 0, 1: 1, 3: 3, 8: 3 (11 '), 9: 6, 11: 6, 11: 8, 13:11, 16:12, 17:13 - 18:14 , 21:14, 21:18, 22:18, 22:21 (45 '), 24:21, 26:23, 29:24.
FINAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP. 1.Germany. 2. Poland. 3. Denmark. 4. France. 5.Croatia. 6.Russia. 7. Spain. 8. Iceland. 9. Hungary 10. Slovenia. 11. Tunisia. 12. Czech Republic. 13.Norway. 14.Ukraine. 15. South Korea. 16. Argentina, 17. Egypt. 18. Kuwait. 19 Brazil. 20. Morocco. 21. Angola. 22. Greenland. 23. Qatar. 24.Australia.
Russian national team at the 2007 World Cup (10 matches: 4 wins, 1 draw, 5 defeats)
Preliminary round
01.20. Russia - South Korea - 32:32
01/21. Russia - Morocco - 35:19
01/22. Russia - Croatia - 27:32
Main round
01/24. Russia - Spain - 29:33
01/25. Russia - Czech Republic - 30:26
01/27 Russia - Denmark - 24:26
01/28. Russia - Hungary - 26:25
Quarter final
01/30. Russia - Poland - 27:28
For 5-8th places
1.02. Russia - Iceland - 28:25
3.02. Russia - Croatia - 25:34
Player participation
E. Koksharov - 9 games, 55 goals / 77 shots (22 goals from the penalty spot / 31 attempts); K. Igropulo - 10, 43/82 (10/14); A.Rastvortsev - 10, 37/81; D. Krivoshlykov - 10, 30/41; V. Ivanov - 10, 30/61; M. Chipurin - 10, 26/40; D. Kovalev - 10, 16/23; A.Kamanin - 10, 9/21; E. Evdokimov - 9, 10/18; V.Myagkov - 8, 8/11 (3/3), T. Dibirov - 3, 6/17; O. Kuleshov - 2, 4/7; V. Filippov - 10, 2/15; A. Kainarov - 8, 7/10; A. Chernivivanov - 1, 0/1; goalkeepers: A. Kostygov - 10 games, 104 saves / 349 shots (30%); E. Titov - 10, 11/46 (24%).