Serbia vs. Spain 20:21 (12:12)

Spain is the lucky semi-finalist: The Spaniards won their quarterfinal against Serbia with a golden shot in the last second of the match. While Serbia started not bad into this match, Spain had done some mistakes at the beginning and performed very nervous. Consequently the Serbs went into lead by 8:5 after the first minutes. But Spain found their way into the match step by step and caught up. The game became open again after 30 minutes. But after the break it looked like the Serbs would end up as winners. They took the lead and kept it until almost the end of the match. The mistakes happened during the last minutes when they started to miss the Spanish goal too often. Spain took this chance to score the decisive goal in the last second of the game. The Spaniards will meet defending champion Denmark in the semi-finals. The Serbians will have to play against Norway in the placement round for rank 5 to 9.

Slovenia vs. Germany 32:37 (30:32/29:29/16:15)

For the first time ever in the history of Men’s Youth World Championships a German team reached a semi-final. It was more than only a hard fight for the Germans to break the resistance of the strong Slovenian team. Germany took the lead from the beginning but Slovenia fought tough and engaged. So it was not possible for the team from head coach Christian Schwarzer to defeat their leadership by three goals on the middle of the first half. Slovenia caught up to a 15:14 within seven minutes. During this time the Slovenians found some gaps in the German defence wall. After 30 minutes Slovenia was leading by 16:15. In the second half the match became a real thriller. Until 15 minutes before the end the Slovenians were in lead by two goals. During this time, the European Champion from 2012 forgot to take their chances to score. But this was still not the final decision. Germany came back to a 25:25 draw. But eight minutes before the end the Slovenians punished suspensions of two German players and took over the lead back by 27:26. In the last minutes the Germans found back to their accuracy in offense. The Germans looked like the winner only 90 seconds before the end of the regular 60 minutes. But: The Slovenians fought like lions and reached a 29:29 draw. Thus, the V Men’s Youth World Championship had its first extra time. In overtime, the Slovenians finally lost the power. Germany dominated and secured a place in the round of the best four teams with an unchallenged 37:32. The European Champion will fight in the round of the best four teams against Croatia, Slovenia will meet Sweden in the placement round.