Ahead of their match against France on Sunday night, Slovenia coach Dragan Adzic told ihf.info he thought the Olympic champions were the best team at Spain 2021.

And they certainly proved that eventually winning by 11 goals thanks to an almost complete shutout of the Slovenia attack in the first 15 minutes of the match, ensuring two wins from two games and qualification through to the main round.

GROUP F
Slovenia vs France 18:29 (8:13)

If you do not score against the Olympic champions for the first quarter of a game and then only twice in 20 minutes, then it is almost impossible to get anything from the game and that is exactly what happened as Slovenia were blown away by a rock-solid French defence, described by their coach Olivier Krumbholz as “amazing” following the game.

In those opening exchanges, the Ana Gros-led Slovenia could not score for 14 minutes and in that time Adzic had already taken a time out (by the fifth minute).

Despite Gros herself getting her side off the mark eventually (1:6), the action caused some discomfort and she left the court not to return again. Her 11 minutes on court was just over double that of fellow key player Elizabeth Omoregie who lasted just five minutes as Adzic looked towards a deeper bench to try and turn the game around.

“We tried to play with Elizabeth and Ana but we saw that there were not 100% to play so we didn't play with them,” he revealed to ihf.info later.

With 17 minutes on the clock, the stats showed it all for Slovenia with just one goal from 10 shots, but France were only on 57% themselves in front of goal and when they went 8:1 ahead, Slovenia mounted a mini-comeback of sorts, bringing the game within three (6:9) thanks to a 4:0 scoring run and stopping Krumbholz’s golden girls from scoring for seven minutes (19th-26th minute).

A five-goal France half-time lead was more than doubled by the end in a game which continued the learning process for Adzic and his side. 

“There were a lot of good things and bad things we can learn from this match,” he said. “100% this is not the level of Slovenian team and in the next match, they'll be much higher."

For France, it was not all perfect, with right back Laura Flippes going off with an injury, her left ankle heavily iced at the end of the match and being helped onto court for the post-match procedure by teammate Tamara Horacek.

“We don't know exactly what she has,” said Krumbholz after the game and before the injury had been assessed. “She has a problem and we don't know now if she will play again with the French team.

“We are very happy for this result,” he added. “We just had some difficulty with shooting, but it's a very good score and good for the future in the competition.”

The last quarter saw Slovenia drop off, with France outscoring them 8:3 as they made every possession count with Grace Zaadi Duena (four goals) taking home the best player award and was full of praise for her sides’ performance.

“My first feeling is that I'm happy, happy and proud about the game that we achieved tonight because we know how strong this Slovenia team are,” she said. “We were prepared for this and especially in the first half we defended good.”

The second half opened with a strike from Estelle Nze Minko, putting her side 14:8 up, with the goal number 3,000 for the French women in IHF Women's World Championship history, since their first appearance back in 1986.

hummel Player of the Match: Grace Zaadi Duena, France