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"We have to try": Inside the last seconds of the manic quarter-final between France and Egypt
29 Jan. 2025
Handball is a game of margins. Sometimes they can be quite large. Other times, they can be measured in tenths of a second. And those tenths of second can make the difference between a semi-finals berth at the IHF Men’s World Championship or going home.
For Egypt, three tenths of a second meant that they suffered yet another heartbreak, another painful loss, another close call, another moment where if things went differently just by a whisker, history would have been made.
The quarter-finals curse for the Pharaohs started at the 2021 IHF Men’s World Championship, on their home court, in Cairo, when they conceded a penalty shoot-out loss against Denmark. Two years later, at Poland/Sweden 2023, they lost against co-hosts, Sweden, 22:26.
The Paris 2024 Olympic Games saw another difficult loss for Egypt, in the same phase of the competition, 28:29, against Spain, after “Los Hispanos” engineered a fantastic comeback, securing an extra-time win.
And once again, at Croatia/Denmark/Norway 2025, Egypt were so close, but yet so far from a semi-finals spot and a chance at their maiden medal in a major international competition.
Down five goals in the second half, coach Juan Carlos Pastor deployed a seven-on-six attack throughout most of the second part of the game, tying the score and going toe-to-toe with France in the last 10 minutes.
With three seconds to go, right back Yahia Omar converted a breakthrough shot and tied the score, 33:33. But Egypt had no time to switch their extra attacking player with the goalkeeper. And when Remi Desbonnet lasered the ball to Luka Karabatic who needed to try a last-gasp shot, there were still two seconds on the clock.
Karabatic, a former France captain and one of the most experienced players on the court, made the reception and never flinched when he delivered the final shot of the match. It went in. But did the ball cross the line in its entirety before the final buzzer?
After a VR review by the two referees, Slave Nikolov and Gjorgji Nachevski, it turned out that Karabatic shot made it home with 0:0.3 seconds left on the clock. Three tenths of the second! That was the margin of the France win, which sent them through to the semi-finals and eliminated Egypt.
“I'm devastated. I don't know what to say. I'm still figuring it out. I don't know. I have no words. We played to the end to lose at the last second. It's heartbreaking. I feel like we're under a spell. We're on the road with a young team, and we've tried the last few championships. We're not going to die. We lose, but we'll come back. Even like this, where it's heartbreaking... We'll definitely come back,” said Yahia Omar for Danish media outlet TV2.
It was yet another heartbreak for Egypt, which tried their mightiest, but still fell short at the last hurdle. It also proved that every action has a reaction and the seven-on-six tactic deployed so effective by Pastor in attack, had its checks and balances on the other end of the court.
France had already scored once via a long-distance open-goal shot, early in the second half, through Aymeric Minne. While they were not able to stop the Egypt attack, which constantly found ways to exploit the European side’s defence, they used fast throw-offs, to keep the pace running and score easy goals, as Egypt were still not fully settled into their defence, having to make at least two changes, one with the goalkeeper coming back between the posts and the other with Ibrahim El Masry, the lynchpin of the defence, who did not feature in attack.
But with three seconds of the clock, every ounce of training, every bit of the mechanism which is repeated until perfection, go out the window. It is about instinct and about taking responsibility.
“One of the weapons to counter them was precisely that, quick throw-offs, and we often managed to score quickly after conceding goals. Before the final shot, I looked at the scoreboard, I saw that there were 3 seconds left and I said to myself: "We have to try," said France’s line player.
Karabatic, now 36 years old, had previously scored four goals at the IHF Men’s World Championship, featuring mostly on defence. Against Egypt, he did not try a shot on goal until that point, with the other two line players in France’s roster, Nicolas Tournat and Ludovic Fabregas, combining for four goals.
“We had a lot of problems with seven on six game, we didn't manage to make any stops in defense. And so, the game ultimately depended on one detail. There was really a little bit of luck, a little bit of everything, but we actually played the whole game with heart. We didn't lower our heads at any point and we fought until the end,” said Karabatic at the end of the match.
His shot was ultimately the decider, proving that the Karabatic name is still crucial for France, even after the retirement of his brother, Nikola, after the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where France were out in crushing fashion in the quarter-finals against Germany, with the opponents tying the score with one second left, pushing the match in extra-time, where they delivered the final blow.
It was a heavy blow for France, but this time around, the pendulum swang into the European champions’ way, as the seconds – or better put – the tenth of seconds were just enough to see France emerge with a 34:33 win and a semi-finals berth.
“This is high-level sport, it comes down to small details that tipped in our favor this time. There were a lot of emotions, in both directions at the Olympics, but we have to take it all in and move forward,” added Karabatic.
And so they did, turning around what looked to be a crucial moment in France’s history. With their seventh win in seven matches, the six-time world champions live to fight another day and face Croatia in the semi-finals.