Hungary punish Spain early on, face France in 5/6 placement

17 Aug. 2019

Hungary punish Spain early on, face France in 5/6 placement

2017 runners-up Spain are one step away from their lowest-ever ranking in an IHF Men’s Youth World Championship after losing to Hungary in the first round of matches in the placement round 5-8 this lunchtime in North Macedonia.

With their 29:24 victory, the Hungarians can further improve their already historic best-ever rank in the competition as they prepare to face France tomorrow for fifth place.

PLACEMENT ROUND 5-8
Hungary vs Spain 29:24 (13:8)
Boris Trajkovski Arena, Skopje

Last year, Hungary beat Spain 22:19 at the M18 EHF EURO and they made it a second win in two major championships with a comfortable five-goal victory after an impressive first half.

Despite Spain coming back strongly in the second period (16:16), their five-goal deficit in the first half was too much to overcome and they never led in the entire 60 minutes.

The writing was on the wall early on as Spain coach took his first time out down 5:2 with seven minutes and 12 seconds on the clock and one minute and 27 seconds later (8:39 on the clock) he took his second, indignant and exasperated at his players and their lack of adherence to what he had just talked through moments earlier.

But it did not improve as Hungary opened a six-goal lead soon after (8:2, 16th minute) and kept a handsome distance for the rest of the match.

Spain’s third time out came just six minutes and 43 seconds into the second half as they found themselves 17:9 down and it rose to the biggest gap – of 10 – with 20 minutes left (20:10).

Hungary’s top scorer Bence Hornyak scored six times to move up to 38 goals and his side now will hope to squeeze the highest rank they can tomorrow in the 5/6 placement match after finishing 10th in their two previous appearances in the competition.

“We were motivated for this game and we wanted to beat Spain,” said Hungary coach Krisztian Karpati to wch2019championship.com.mk. “We were very good in the first half and it was the difference.”

Best player of the match: Bence Hornyak (HUN)