With Egypt winning the opening match for the Handball World Cup, the 27th IHF Men’s World Championship, the stakes were set extremely high. Egypt 2021 competition’s management announced on the 17th that the game between Cape Verde and Germany has been canceled after the central Atlantic team failed to meet the tournament’s regulations.
In accordance, the Egyptian protocol regarding 2021 COVID-19 related regulations, a minimum of 10 players are needed in a single team to play a match. Cape Verde announced that only nine players are available for the game against Germany in the second round of the Group A games, thereby the competition’s management decided to cancel the game.
Germany have been given a free pass to the main round of the World Championship after they defeated Uruguay 43-14 in the first round and winning the second game 10-0, and Cape Verde’s withdrawal due to COVID-19 infections in the team’s squad.
Cape Verde confirmed they will bring additional eligible players to participate in the event. It is expected that those players can take part in the match against Uruguay if the required PCR tests taken prior to arrival and on site are all negative.
Cape Verde opened their World Championship campaign by losing 27-34 to Hungary, and they are competing to book a place in the main round of the tournament. Cape Verde were scheduled to face Uruguay in the third round of the Group A games on the 19th. In accordance with the Egypt 2021 COVID-19 related regulations, missing three matches will lead to an exclusion from the competition.
Egypt slumped to their first defeat at the ongoing World Championship on the 18th of January when they lost to Sweden 23-24 in Cairo.
The Pharaohs made a good start of the game as they controlled the first half that ended with a three-goal lead for Egypt, thanks to a superb performance from Mohamed Sanad, Yehya Khaled and Mohamed Mamodouh Hachem.
The second half saw a poor performance from the Pharaohs, allowing Sweden to come from four-goals down to win the game 24-23.
During this second Half, the Egyptian side failed to overcome the Swedish compact defence in many occasions.
Despite Monday’s loss, Egypt secured their place in the main round alongside Sweden and Macedonia.
In the main round, Egypt is facing Russia, Belarus and Slovenia, who booked the qualifying tickets of Group H.
The Egyptian National Team have conceded their first defeat in the 2021 hand ball World Championship against Europe giants Sweden in the deciding game for the leader of Group G.
The Pharaohs had opened their campaign with 35-29 against Chile and needed at least one more point in order to secure their place in the main round of the competition. Their second game was against North Macedonia, who who replaced Czech Republic with the game seeing the return of Egypt legend Ahmed El-Ahmar.
Both Egypt and Sweden were coming from victories and had secured qualification to the Main Round of the World championship and were facing to decide the group winner. The Pharaohs started the game in a brilliant way and managed to maintain a three-goal lead ahead of Sweden till the end of the first half to end it 12-9 in their favour.
The second half started in the same pattern with Egypt resisting Sweden’s attempts to get back in the result, however the visitors’ endeavors were fruitful by the 40th minute after they managed to equalise the result before turning it around to seal a 24-23 victory.
Sweden finished Group G in the leadership with six points, with Egypt in the second spot with four points, followed by Macedonia with two points and Chile with zero points. The Pharaohs is now facing Russia on the 20th of January, before playing against Slovenia on the 22nd then concluding their Main Round matches with an encounter against Belarus.