After France and Sweden, Spain is the third semi-finallist of the Men’s Junior World Championship in Bosnia-Herzegovina. For 55 minutes the surprise team from Switzerland including extra-ordinary goalkeeper Nikola Portner had been a high hurdle to cross, but in the final stages the Spaniards were clearly dominant and took a well-deserved 26:22 (13:12) quarter-final win thanks to the higher individual class and bigger experience of their players. The Spaniards will face the winner of the final quarter-final Croatia vs. Brazil in their semi.

Led by their brilliant individual shooters Alex Dujhsebaev (finally top scorer by eight goals) and Juan Fernandez the Spaniards already dominated the first half from minute 15 and the score of 6:6 on. Before, Switzerland – again backed by strong goalkeeper Nikola Portner - was in lead, but later missed too many chance to keep in front. Spain was more clever and efficient in attack, but could not cast off their bravely fighting competitor. At the break, the Spanish advance was only one goal at 13:12 despite the huge number of Swiss missed chances.

Also in the second half the match was on full eye level. The favoured Spanish team – European champion in 2012 – needed to work really hard to stand the Swiss pressure, and the match became even more intense. In contrast to the first half, Switzerland managed to stop the ways of Fernandez, so Spain had problems in scoring.

The main reason for the close result was the performance of Portner, who stood like a rock and finally had 17 saves on his tally. But his team mates did not take the profit from his saves, but gave too many balls from their hands still or hit the post several times.

Even a red card after three two minutes suspensions against Stefan Huwyler did not shatter the Swiss hopes, they still stood brave. But when Spanish goalkeeper Daniel Arguillas saved four straight shots of the Swiss, who missed to score for eight minutes, a double strike of Fernandez and Dujshebajev for 23:19 – the biggest gap by now - pre-decided this quarter-final.

Latest when Victor Saez scored for the 25:22 two minutes before the end, the deal was sealed – and the European champion can still hope for a World Championship medal.  Best Swiss scorer was Kevin Jub by five goals.