Germany are the first finalists of the 1st IHF Men’s Under-17 World Championship, after a dominating win against Qatar, 39:22.

SEMI-FINAL
Germany vs Qatar 39:22 (21:14)

In the first semi-final of the 1st IHF Men’s Under-17 World Championship, Germany were overwhelming favourites, but the match started well within Qatar’s margin of error, with the Asian side taking a 3:1 lead after three minutes, with an excellent defensive play.

In attack, Qatar relied once again heavily on backs Ramy Mahrous and Ahmed Elsayed, who scored six and seven goals respectively, as the top two scorers in the competition for the Asian side combined for 13 of their 14 goals.

Therefore, that created a void in attack for Qatar, which, in turn, was heavily exploited by Germany in the second part of the first half, as the European powerhouse definitely focused more on the two Qatar backs, daring their opponents to play more with their wings and line players.

And this is where the buck turned, as Qatar turned the ball over more times than Germany and, despite Germany’s goalkeeper registering only two saves between them, the European side delivered a pitch perfect attacking performance, which had a 72% shooting efficiency.

With Kalle Gaugisch finishing the first half with five goals and Leonard Volk adding four more goals, Germany were up seven goals at the break, finishing the first half with a 7:3 run, including a 30-metre converted shot by Jasper Anschütz at the buzzer.

It is always hard to come back from a seven-goal deficit and even more difficult to provide a better performance in the second half of a match where one team had only three scorers in the first 30 minutes, with this kind of a one-dimensional attack not being enough against a team with huge depth.

In fact, until the 40th minute, Germany had eight different scorers, with four players scoring at least five goals, with an impressive attack efficiency of 68% and an average attack duration of 24 seconds, compared to Qatar’s 43 seconds.

With a 10-goal lead at that point, Germany were clearly in the driving seat and they never backed down, despite Mahrous and Elsayed dominating on the court, as they combined for 19 goals.

Germany’s Tim Löhr, Gaugisch and Anschütz had 21 goals, as they guided Germany to a clear 39:22 win and a place in the maiden final of the IHF Men’s Under-17 World Championship, after their fourth consecutive win, but the first match in which they did not score at least 40 goals.

Player of the Match: Jasper Anschütz (Germany)