Bojana Popovic’s Montenegro finally got their engines running at Spain 2021 as they showed grit and determination to bounce back from a disappointing loss against Slovenia on their opening day to push through a tough Angola side and take a 10-goal victory, 30:20 – the exact same score Angola lost their previous match by, against France.

Angola still have a chance to qualify and Montenegro can go out but, for the time being, Montenegro can enjoy their victory.

GROUP F
Montenegro vs Angola 30:20 (11:9)

It was apt that long-serving Montenegro captain Jovanka Radicevic had the last touch of the ball in this one – her 7m penalty after the final buzzer sounding, ensuring she finished with 12 goals after playing the entire match.

Radicevic also opened the scoring, starting a 4:0 run which put her side on the front foot early on, but Angola came back (3:4), before another Montenegrin run (3:0) saw them take the initiative again (7:3, 17th minute).

The game was not a classic early on with a number of turnovers, technical faults and fouls – it saw 36 turnovers in total – but this did not disrupt the Angolans as they came back time and time again, led by their influential line player Albertina Kassoma.

They even had a chance to come within one at 8:10 down just before half-time but they missed that, going into half-time by the same difference down (9:11).

Angola had the impetus, though, and following a lengthy half-time chat from coach Felipe Cruz, they came onto court, full of optimism.

However, the wind was taken out of their sails almost immediately when Juliana Machado tripped a mid-air Ivona Pavicevic in on goal and was shown a red card.

“My feeling is of frustration,” said Felipe Cruz. “We had some illusions about how the match would go and lacked a little bit of serenity thinking about this. The team fought very well throughout the whole game and we tried to change several times the strategy to be more defensive and have more attacks but none of it went so well.”

“We are sad and frustrated,” echoed Kassoma. “We had hopes that everything would go well.”

For Montenegro coach Bojana Popovic she was beaming at the final buzzer, knowing that the mathematics were in her favour of progressing to the next phase of Spain 2021.

“I am so happy and proud,” she said. “After the game against Slovenia I thought my players did well, they were real ‘Lionesses’ (the nickname of the side) today for 60 minutes.

“When they played 7 vs 6 it was key of the game and we could score easy goals,” she added. “Now we have some other picture of qualification in front of us, we are almost in the next round.”

hummel Player of the Match: Marina Rajcic, Montenegro