The Cape Verde Islands handball team will be Croatia’s first opponent in the second phase of the World Championship.
The African national team won in a direct duel for the third place in Group G Cuba with a score of 38:28.
Croatia will play against the Cape Verde Islands on Wednesday from 18:00, which will be the only game that Dagur Sigurdsson’s men will not play in the evening slot from 20:30. The reason is that Dinamo football players are visiting Arsenal in the Champions League that evening from 21:00, so an agreement was reached so that the broadcasts of the matches would not overlap.
Representation Cape Verde Islands at no point in the match against Cuba was she behind. They reached the first significant separation in the 16th minute, when they took a 12:7 lead with a 4:0 series. Until the end of the first part, they maintained that advantage, so they went to the break with a lead of 20:14.
Already at the opening of the second half, they scored three consecutive goals and went to a nine goal difference, so there was no way back for the Cubans.
Croatia will play the next two rounds, i.e. the two matches of the second phase of the competition, at the usual time of 20 hours and 30 minutes, as before. Croatia awaits in the second round winner of group Gand it will be the winner of tonight’s duel between Slovenia and Iceland, while in the third round they will play against the loser of that duel. In the event that Slovenia and Iceland draw, Slovenia would win the group because of the greater number of goals scored.
For the Cape Verde Islands, this was it second win at the world championships, after they defeated Uruguay 33:25 in the first round in 2023. After that, they lost to Sweden, Brazil, Iceland, Portugal and Hungary in order and finally finished in 23rd place. Two years earlier, they made their debut at the world championships, but after losing 34:27 against Hungary, they had to cancel the second round match against Germany, Index writes.
Cape Verde canceled the game against Germany due to numerous cases of coronavirus in his team, so the match was registered with a score of 10:0 for Germany. After that, due to new cases of coronavirus, they decided to leave the World Handball Championship in Egypt.
(www.jabuka.tv | Photo: Luka Stanzl/PIXSELL)
