Ahead of their fourth IHF Men’s Junior World Championship preliminary group game, against Korea today, Egypt sit joint top of Group B with France, both teams having collected six points each following three wins from three.

Egypt started their Spain 2019 campaign with a 44:17 win over Australia, followed by a 47:30 win over Nigeria and then an impressive demolition of Sweden last time out, 32:22.

The U21 side playing in Spain face their Asian opponents today knowing a win will help them going into their final group match against France on Monday (22 July) in what could be a group decider.

“It was a great match, everything is going well for us on and off the court,” said right back Mohamed Magdy Elazhary to IHF.info following that defeat of their continental rivals Nigeria. “Nigeria are very good and are doing well, having gained experience from the African championship last year in Morocco but we are ready for all of our matches.”

Being ready for all the matches has meant that Egypt have had to adapt to playing five teams from four different continents in their group, something that fellow right back Hazem Mamdouh Mohamed relishes.

“Of course, there are a lot of different styles and tactics with each team from the different continents,” said the Zamalek player. “Even teams within each continent have different styles, but we train for any team in any situation, like Korea for example – they are really fast, but short, so we are going to go push down on the six metre line and see what happens.

“For 4-5 months we’ve been training really hard for these moments and we want to get to the top level – it’s really great to be here.”

Egypt were dominant against a Sweden side who could only bring the game level twice and Mohamed revealed to IHF.info it was all part of longer plan.

“We actually played them in a friendly match two weeks ago,” he said. “So, we knew them and had watched them, but we didn’t play them so hard as we wanted to wait for this moment. They beat us by 10, but as I said, we didn’t play hard in that one, and here, match-by-match we will get harder.

“Personally, I didn’t play so good,” he added. “I need to work harder and I need to train on my legs because they are weak, but, as a team, we keep watching every single team a lot until you know each team individually.”

For Mohamed, who has been playing since he was five, it does not get any better to play the sport he holds dear to his heart, wearing the national team jersey and hearing the national anthem.

“I love everything about the game,” he said. “All my family played handball, so I started, and it just feels really great when we sing the anthem. We’re holding the country’s name and when I get on court I forget about everything.”

Teammate Elazhary is also full of passion and pride when hears the anthem of the North African country.

“Handball in Egypt is a famous sport, like football, so everybody knows handball in Egypt,” said the Zamalek teammate of Mohamed. “We want to fly the flag of Egypt high in Spain at this tournament and we all know what wearing this shirt means.

“When we see the flag of Egypt raised it is a beautiful feeling and we are all very happy.”

In 2021 the IHF Men’s World Championship will take place in Egypt and the new Egyptian men’s senior coach, Spaniard Roberto Garcia Parrondo, was in Pontevedra watching the next generation of Egyptian players coming through.

“When we knew Parrondo was becoming the coach we knew it was a really good thing for us as we all saw him win the EHF Champions League,” said Mohamed. “We all know he’s a really, really good coach. We are all thinking about Egypt 2021 and of course that is the goal for all of us.  It means everything for Egypt because everyone in the country is going to come and give us motivation for it.”

But in the here and now, Elazhary is clear about what the goals are at Spain 2019.

“We came to Spain to win the world championship,” he said. “We will focus on the matches and will surprise everybody.”