betprepare.com

Hungary's mobility facing a huge test

Both teams have lost their chance of getting through and can only try to get try to get a better ranking. While Israel said that 10th spot wouldn't be a failure for them, the Hungarians have completely disappointed their handball association

ÖHB

Israel's defense was nowhere nearly as strong in the second round  as against Sweden in the first round. Slovenia have shown how much a deeper zone from their opponents suits them as they have plenty of agile players, and Dragan Đukić's team kept things tight for only 10 minutes or so. Even then Slovenia had a 6-4 lead but in the following 10 minutes, they get an 8-1 run and practically put this game to bed.

- I think we've made too many errors, we've lost too many balls. Our gameplan was almost non-existent and so was our defense - said the team captain Shahar Levin.

ÖHB

The fact that Dukić was forced to draw their defense to some 9-10 meters after 20 minutes shows how easily the Slovenians penetrated their 3-3 defense. They soon had to switch to 6-0 or 5-0 with one player keeping a close watch on one of Slovenians, most often their right-back Janc. But this has did help Israel too much as they barely managed to keep the same deficit for some 10 minutes and then the Slovenians soon increased their lead to 15 goals. The end result of 41-25 could have been a bit smaller, had Adžić's players not given up on returning to defense in the last 5-6 minutes as was the case against Sweden as well.

Considering the very poor defense he had in front of him, Israel's first-choice keeper Tepper did alright as he collected 12 saves, while right-back Kushmar also deserves praise who played a very good match, despite having a bandaged hand (injury in first round against Sweden), scored 4 goals and was named the best individual in his team.

ÖHB

While the Israelis played what was virtually an exhibition match against Slovenia, Hungary had a tough battle against Sweden even though it was not expected after a more convincing defeat at the start of the tournament against Slovenia. The main reason for that is their keeper Gerga Miklos who was up to the challenge and got 13 saves. Not too much at first glance, but one should bear in mind that the game was pretty slow and that his defense fell apart in the last 10 minuter or so and he conceded more goals than he should have.

- I would like to congratulate Sweden, they played an almost perfect match. I think we were tired today, we should have won the match against Slovenia yesterday, but we played very poorly. Today was much better but we still have plenty of space for improvements - said the Hungarian coach after their second defeat at the EC.

ÖHB

It's too late too improve for this game as they can no longer achieve their main goal of progressing into the next round. Slovenia and Sweden have four points each and these two teams have nothing to play for but to carry over the points into the lower part of the competition in which they will face Belarus and Slovakia, two worst teams in Group C. Motivation usually plays a huge part in those games and if there's a team renowned for their fanatical performance for their country, it's Israel. On the other hand, Hungary will have to be motivated and under pressure as they know how how the handball association has invested in them and they haven't returned very much. 

Israel's deep defense won't suit the Hungarians too much. Hungary's squad is full of massive, sluggish players and if they want to avoid problems in the third game, they will have to play a compact game like they did for some 50 minutes against Sweden. If they don't do that, the fanatic Israelis could cause a lot of problems for them.