Montenegro did enough again at the SWT Arena in Trier, Germany, grabbing their second win in two matchdays as they saw off Paraguay to confirm their spot in Dortmund in the main round which starts next week.

Group D
Paraguay vs Montenegro 25:34 (13:19)

With captain Delyne Leiva sitting out due to an elbow injury picked up against Spain in their opener and the influential Sabrina Fiore on crutches, Paraguay were depleted against the London 2012 Olympic Games silver medallists but gave a good account of themselves in front of just under 2,000 fans in the SWT Arena.

The crowd did their best to support the big underdogs from South America but Suzanna Lazovic’s side were too good across their whole 16 to be troubled at any point, despite the second half seeing the European side outscore their opponents by three (15:12).

Montenegro coach Suzanna Lazovic was able to rotate her whole squad with the exception of Nina Bulatovic who was rested due to some muscle tightness.

Goalkeeper Armelle Attingre played a key game in Montenegro’s key victory against the Faroes two days ago; she split goalkeeping duty with Andrea Skerovic and Marija Marsenic.

Despite the loss, Paraguay coach Marizza Faria will take pride in scoring 25 goals against the Europeans, but knows that her side have just one chance left to qualify for the next phase, when they take on the Faroes on Sunday (30 November).

They went some way to correcting their errors from their opening loss against Spain, but with 12 first half turnovers (20 overall), improvement is needed.

“We made some mistakes that we cannot do,” said Lazovic. “We are not facing a typical (European team) and our focus and concentration went down a bit, but they then tried to stop everything in defence and gave everything in the fast break.”

“We had very good minutes but very bad minutes too,” said Faria. “Right now, we don’t have anything left and we go to training tomorrow working hard to correct our mistakes.”

hummel Player of the Match: Anastasija Marsenic (Montenegro)