France reach second Junior World Championship final

27 Jul. 2019

France reach second Junior World Championship final

After a slow start that left them chasing to close the gap, France turned the first semi-final at the 2019 IHF Men’s Junior World Championship around to finish with a two-goal victory over Egypt. With the win, France qualified for their second Junior World Championship final in history, and left Egypt to fight for the bronze for the fifth time overall. 

SEMI-FINAL
Egypt vs France 33:35 (16:19)

Egypt had taken a comfortable victory over France in the preliminary round, which earned them first place in the group and made them the first non-European side to have that result in 10 years. 

Initially, it looked as though Egypt would do the same in the semi-final. They scored four unanswered goals before France crossed the goal line for the first time. France coach Johann Delattre called his first time-out of the game after just three minutes of play, but it still took his team some time to add their first goal. 

At the 10-minute mark, Egypt backs Seif Elderaa and Mohsen Mahmoud had each scored three goals at 100% accuracy and were clearly the biggest dangers to France – but then the European team found the way to defend them, with a 5-1 system that kept both Elderaa and Mahmoud completely off the score board through the rest of the half. 

In the first period, France’s goalkeepers struggled, and Valentin Kieffer was replaced by Gauthier Ivah after making no saves off six shots faced. But in the second period, Kieffer’s form improved dramatically and he became a key weapon for France – and a nightmare for Egypt. 

As he has been in all of France’s knock-out round matches, Noah Gaudin also proved the most important player in attack. It was he who brought France within one goal, at 8:7 in the 15th minute, and he also scored the equaliser for 11:11 in the 20th. Quite suddenly France had all the momentum, and they seemed to easily pull ahead for a three-goal advantage at the break. 

When the match resumed it seemed Egypt had no answer, as they fell behind by a deficit as clear as six goals, 19:25 in the 41st – but then came the fight back. Helped by critical saves from Abdelrhman Taha Ali and Elderaa and Mahmoud finding their shooting arms again – though they were not as effective as in the first 10 minutes – Egypt reduced the deficit. A 3:0 partial from the African side from the 49th minute to the 53rd took the difference to one goal, 29:30. 

Egypt moved their defence to mark back Elohim Prandi completely out of the game, and they were right to focus on him, though they could not contain him completely. Egypt equalised at 31:31 with four minutes on the clock, and a tense end to the match followed. After 33:34 as the last 60 seconds began, it was Prandi who scored the match winner. 

Player of the match: Noah Gaudin, France