The first part of the placement round for the positions 5-8 ended with highly close results: Netherlands beat Egypt by one goal, Brazil even needed a penalty shoot-out to reach the 5/6 placement match – and will definitely be the best non-European team at the Men’s Junior World Championship.

Placement round 5-8:

Egypt – Netherlands 27:28 (10:13)

A goal by Jorn Smits five seconds before the end decided today’s first placement round duel of two fully equal teams. Like in their quarter-final against France, the Africans were on eye level for 60 minutes and only missed some luck to play for the 5/6 positions. After the 19:19 the final result was the only Dutch lead in the second half. Egyptian Mostafa Khalil became top scorer of the match by nine goals, but in the final stages his team missed too many chances to win the duel.

The first half had been a roller coaster with changing leads: Egypt was ahead by 6:3, then Netherlands retook the lead at 11:10 and secured a 13:10 halftime result after five straight goals. After the break the Africans turned the match around again, equalized at 14:14 and were away again. From the 19:19 on the match was on the edge, and knowing the significance of every action, both teams became nervous. 58 seconds before the end, Dutch goalkeeper Luuk Hoiting saved an Egyptian shot at the score of 27:27 and paved the way to the victory, finally secured by Smits. Best Dutch scorer was Tommy Falke by six goals, goalkeeper Bert Ravensbergen saved 13 shots.

Switzerland – Brazil 24:25 (21:21, 11:12) after penalty shoot-out

A save of Lucas Santana and the final penalty goal of Arthur Patrianova decided the placement thriller, which had to be decided by penalty shoot-out after the result had been 21:21 after 60 minutes. Brazil now will be the only non-European team among the top 6 of the competition.

In the initial stage the Brazilians surprised Switzerland by a highly offensive defence, but after ten minutes the Europeans had coped with that. Due to too many missed chances Switzerland could not profit from their strong defence including goalkeeper Nikola Portner. On the other hand, Brazil took pover the control in the final stages of the first half to turn a 8:10 backlog into a 12:11 lead, which even was extended to 14:11 despite some more great Portner saves. His team had missed ten consecutive chances without scoring a goal, Swiss coach Michael Suter hit the break by a time-out. And after 12 minutes without a goal after the break, Simpon Getzmann scored for the 12:16 – and this was the wake-up call for one of the most impressive catch-up stages of the World Championship by now. Portner saved, his team mates – especially top scorer Kevin Jud (9 goals) – scored by counter-attack goals and Brazil became nervous.

In 17 minutes Switzerland managed to equalize from 11:16 to 21:21 – and still 73 seconds were on the clock. First Brazil took a time-out then missed their last shot, Switzerland had the last attack, coach Suter also took his time-out, but finally his players did not score. In the penalty shoot-out first Portner saved against Fernando Dutra, then Swiss Sergio Muggli hit the post. When Santana saved against Pascal Vernier and Patrianova hit the net, the Brazilian Samba started on the court.

The schedule for the placement matches 5-16 for Saturday (27 July):

9:45: Placement match 15/16: Argentina – Tunisia

12:00 Placement match 13/14: Bosnia-Herzegovina – Denmark

14:15: Placement match 11/12: Germany – Hungary

16:30: Placement match 9/10: Serbia – Slovenia

18:45: Placement match 7/8: Egypt - Switzerland

21:00 Placement match 5/6: Netherlands - Brazil