Opposed to Bahrain for their third group match at the Handball World Cup, Belgium lost 28-30 at the end of a match dominated by Bahrainis. With 2 small points in three matches, the Red Wolves will have to hope for a victory for Denmark against Tunisia in the last match of Pool H to obtain their qualification for the rest of the competition.
The Belgians ideally started the match with three goals in 6 minutes, which forced the Bahrain coach to request a first time out. Not enough to disconcert the Red Wolves who quickly brought the score to 6-1. But Bahrain raised their heads and equalized at 9-9 after 20 minutes of play. The time out requested by their coach Yérime Sylla did not allow the Red Wolves to reverse the trend, and the Bahrainis took control of the meeting. The two teams returned to the locker room with a score of 12-15 after a first half with two faces.
In the second half, the Red Wolves could not come back to score. Worse, the Bahrainis pressed on the accelerator and counted up to seven goals in advance against the Belgians who multiplied the inaccuracies. The match finally ended with a score of 28-30 in favor of Bahrain.
With this defeat, Belgium (2 points) saw Bahrain move ahead of them in the standings with 3 points. If Tunisia, bottom of the group with 1 point, win or draw tonight against Denmark, they will steal the third qualifying place from Belgium, who would then finish last in their group. and would compete in the President’s Cup, to determine the bottom of the final ranking of this 2023 World Cup. In the event of victory for Denmark, first in the group, Belgium will qualify for the rest of the main competition.