The Spain 2019 quarter-finals come to Pontevedra with France taking on Denmark and Tunisia facing Croatia. Ahead of these crucial matches come a number of placement matches where history will be made for either Kosovo or Australia, in the clash of the debutants.

QUARTER-FINAL
Feature match: Tunisia vs Croatia
Pavillon Municipal de Deportes de Pontevedra, 21:00 local time

The three-goal, 29:26 defeat of Sweden by Tunisia in their eighth-final last night was celebrated wildly by the North Africans as it ensures a top-eight spot, but their celebrations were no doubt cut short by coach Mohamed Ali Sghir soon after as they face a tough test against Croatia this evening.

Tunisia have been getting better as the tournament goes on, a sure sign of a team at ease and confident and the way the squad threw their coach up and down in wild celebration following the victory last night highlighted the bond between the players and their leader.

But Croatia have that same bond too with their coach and Davor Dominikovic’s side have a perfect record of six wins out of six so far going into the competition with the better record of these two teams and key men Filip Vistorop (41 goals) and Ivan Martinovic pulling the strings (36 goals) with a fluid, relaxed and devastating attack backed up by the impressive Ivan Eres in goal.

If Croatia win today it will ensure a fourth place minimum finish which will equal their best-ever ranking in the competition, gained also in 2007 and 2013.

Tunisia, despite their clear progression through Spain 2019 as a tightly-knit squad, are well aware of the threat their opponents today pose.

“Croatia is going to be hard,” said Mohamed Aziz Aidi. “But we want to play hard teams and we are proving ourselves. We are getting better and better and are showing the Tunisian handball team to everyone.”

A classic handball clash: Denmark vs France

Two classic handball nations play for a final four spot in the other quarter-final in Pontevedra and both have very different stories coming into Spain 2019. 

This generation of French players are multiple champions, including winning the 2017 IHF Men’s Youth World Championship in Georgia, while Denmark were late arrivals to the Spain 2019 party, having been given a replacement spot for the African continent after a lowly 12th position at the Men’s 20 EHF EURO where they lost 31:30 to France in the Preliminary Round.

These teams, and most of the players, met twice at Georgia 2017 with Denmark losing to France twice, first in the preliminary round, 35:26, and in the semi-final 35:27, as the French went on to take the title and Denmark the bronze medal.

Placement Round sure to inspire

The defeated and disappointed teams from the eighth-finals take on each other in a variety of placement matches throughout the day in Pontevedra with Hungary facing Korea at 14:15hrs for 15/16 place and then Germany taking on Spain at 16:30.

First, historic win for Kosovo?

This morning history will be made if either Australia or Kosovo are able to beat each other in the 23/24 placement match as both sides are in their debut junior world championship and both will not want to finish last while Nigeria take on Chile for 19/20 place.