Goalkeeper Laura Glauser led her side to a 2023 IHF Women’s World Championship semi-final appearance after a supercharged, second half appearance laid the foundation for an 11-goal victory over Czechia in Trondheim.

The result for France means they will now appear in the last four of an IHF Women’s World Championship for third time in the last four editions, after winning gold at Germany 2017 and silver at Spain 2021.

Quarter-finals
France vs Czechia 33:22 (18:16)

At half-time, France goalkeeper Laura Glauser was seen in conversation with coach Amandine Leynaud and first half goalkeeper Hatadou Sako, eating an energy bar or snack of some sort.

Whatever she ate gave her a pure superpower as her entry to the court for the second period turned this game in favour of her side who will now appear in their second, successive world championship final.

Up until the break, France had threatened to take an unassailable lead, going in front numerous times by four goals, but Czechia, led by the impressive championship top scorer, Marketa Jerabkova would not give up.

At the pause, Czechia were just two behind (16:18) and quickly came out to reduce the deficit to one, but up stepped Glauser.

She was saving everything, everywhere – hands, feet, legs, high, low.

Czechia could not get past her, evidenced by just six strikes throughout the whole second 30 minutes. Her figures of 12 saves from 18 attempts – two-thirds of what she faced being blocked – unsurprisingly, saw Glauser win the hummel Best Player of the Match award.

By the 38th minute France had their biggest lead (23:18) at five goals and despite the best intentions of Czechia’s coach Bent Dahl explaining at their subsequent time out to be “more direct” in their shooting, his side were worn down.

And when Jerabkova was served with a two-minute suspension for a foul on France captain Estelle Nze-Minko as the game went into the final 10 minutes, France ran away with it and sealed a double-digit win, first reached in the 57th minute (31:21) thanks to a 5:0 run, part of a 9:3 scoring phase in the final quarter.

France now travel to Herning where they will face Sweden or Germany, while Czechia join them, as they enter the 5-8 placement round and look to better their best-ever ranking as an independent nation, when they finished eighth at Germany 2017.

hummel Player of the Match: Laura Glauser (France)

What they said - quotes from the post-match media conference

Olivier Krumbholz, France coach:
"I am very happy with the result. Against Norway (in our last match), the French team was amazing. It was more difficult for this game, especially the first half, we did not have the same defence but the second half was much better.

"Laura Glauser was totally amazing. We are so happy to go to the semi-final."

Estelle Nze Minko, France player:
"We definitely struggled tonight and we played against a very good team. I am relieved. I am happy to go to the semi-final. I am proud of my team."

Bent Dahl, Czechia coach:
"France - an amazing team. A good performance. We are very happy about one thing: we tried to push what we could today and play good handball.

"The first half, I am very satisfied with my girls that they all tried their best. We had some technical errors in the start, we came a little bit closer (to them) at half-time.

"In the second half we lost it. We lost energy. The quality of France is not our level now. It was a good performance from (France goalkeeper Laura) Glauser in the goal, she closed it.

"They are so much better one-against-one. They can put more players (on court), but I need to stay with 2-3 players all the time in every match, so it's hard to play with this team but I am still proud of my girls."

Marketa Jerabkova, Czechia player:
"France were deserved (winners). They are a team at the top of Europe. We wanted to fight with them and we wanted to make it as complicated as we can."