Doha , August 31 (QNA) -After missing the semifinals in the preliminary round, El-Jaish from Qatar are now aiming to finish fifth at the IHF Super Globe in Doha. After winning their first placement match expectedly clearly against Sydney 33:25 , the Qatar team now will face Metodista Sao Bernardo (BRA) in the 5/6 placement match on Saturday 1 September. El-Jaish had beaten their upcoming opponent already in the preliminary round 30:27. Sydney will play against Mudhar (KSA) in the opening match of the final day, fighting for the seventh and eighth place.
Placement round: El-Jaish (QAT) University of Sydney (AUS) 33:25 (18:9)
El-Jaish coach Ivica Orbvan left out the European players completely in the first 20 minutes and gave the chance to prove their strength to the Qataris. And after a close start, El-Jaish extended the gap to pre-decisive nine goals at the break. But like in all previous matches, Sydney did not resign, but gave all they had. Intermediately the student’s team winner of the Oceania continental club championship, had come closer to only 22:27 eight minutes before the end, before the individual skills of the El-Jaish players were the key to the later-on clear success.
Ivica Obrvan, coach El-Jaish: We are happy to win, as we gave a chance to play without the professional players, which meant to have a different quality, but they made a good job.
David Spiler, player El-Jaish: We are happy about this victory, but we are still disappointed that we missed the semifinal. Our final goal is now to win the fifth place.
Pascal Winkler, goalkeeper and assistant coach Sydney: We are very disappointed with the way we played in the first half, we appreciate that Qatar is a strong handball country with strong players. After the break we performed well and won the second half, but unfortunately it was our weakest performance by now. But again we fought until the end and came back in the second half.
Tomasz Szklarski, player Sydney: We came here to fight and we showed it only in the second half. But in general we are grateful to be invited by the IHF and the Qatar Handball Association. We showed that we can play handball and handball is alive in Australia.(QNA)
