Norway – Serbia 22:25, 22:22 (12:11)

Serbian victory after extra-time

In the third quarter-final of this Junior World Championship Serbia achieved a lucky and barely victory against the team of Norway. Attended by nearly 100 Norwegian supporters the Scandinavian girls lost with 22:25 after extra-time and will go on competing for the places 5 to 8 where they will meet the looser of the match between Sweden and Russia. Serbia, as the winner, is now facing the semi-final against the winner of the above-mentioned quarter-final. Norway started very well into this decisive match and had already reached a score of 6:1 after only after eleven minutes. The Serbian coach tried to adjust his players with an early time-out. With success: After 22 minutes Serbia was back in this match with only one goal behind (8:9) and a few minutes later with a 10:10 draw. With one player less because of a two-minute-penalty Norway nevertheless made the leading goal a few seconds before the break (12:11).

In the first period of the second half Serbia played very strong and consequently caught up to a three-goal-lead after 41 minutes (18:15). When the match was close to the end, it was more and more tight. Norway equalized after 53 minutes and with a score of 20:20 the match started all over again. The confrontation was dramatic and enthralling. Norway was already leading with 22:20 (56.) but they couldn’t keep the lead and at the end of the regular time Serbia had equalized to 22:22, even thoug the Scandinavians had a good chance a few seconds before the end. It was the first extra-time of this World Championship. And the Serbian team played it much better than it´s competitors. After the first five minutes of the extra-time they were in the lead with 24:22. At this time no one knew that this was already the decision of this match, as Norway missed many chances during the second half of the extra-time and did not score at all during the entire ten minutes. Tamara Georgijev (Serbia) was the most successful player of this exciting match and scored seven times. „We didn´t start too well into this match”, said the Serbian coach Zoran Valdevit, who was absolutely happy after the match. „Norway did not score during the entire extra-time, so we played it very well in the last period of this match.”