The handball players of the Netherlands defeated Qatar 32:30 (15:19), and with the two new points won, started the fight for the quarterfinals at the World Championship.
The Asian team played a perfect first half and even had a five-goal advantage, but Stefan Olson’s team entered the second half of the match as reborn and deservedly celebrated.
With this victory, the Netherlands remained in the race for one of the first two places, while Qatar definitely said goodbye to the quarterfinals because it is still without points and the “tulips” have four.
Although the former vice-champion of the world from 2015 had an advantage of “plus four” at the end of the first part, the Netherlands reduced the score to 18:19 with a 3:0 series.
Nevertheless, Qatar rejected this onslaught of rivals and returned a more tangible advantage of 24:21, but, as it turned out, it was the last twitch of Riveria’s team. Very quickly, the scoreboard read 26:26 for the first time after 5:5.
“Tulips” played even stronger, while Qatar went from mistake to mistake, highlighted by a missed seven-pointer by Madadi, who chose the worst moment to miss a penalty for the first time in the championship.
Maladi was the best scorer of the match with 11 goals. Smits and Ten Felde each scored eight goals for the Netherlands.
In the same group, Serbia will play the first match in the second phase against Norway at 20:45.
