A nice achievement for Israeli handball: in front of the home crowd in Tel Aviv, the youth team today (Friday) managed to qualify for the finals of the European Championship Tier B after beating Greece 30:34 at the end of an exciting semi-final. The final against the winner of the second semi-final between the Czech Republic and Lithuania will be held on Saturday at 19:30.
After victories over Bulgaria, Georgia and Lithuania in the group stage, Israel wanted to maintain a perfect balance in the championship but met a particularly high hurdle. The host led 11:13 at the break, but saw how the guest reversed the result in the second half. Goals by Noam Sosna, Assaf Sharon and Kobi Bezeq gave Israel its record advantage – 27:31 – and the host kept the advantage until the end. Sharon led the Israeli team’s scorers with 12 goals.
Coach Assaf Levy said at the end: “With all the long week we’ve had, and we’ve done amazing things – this victory won’t be worth anything if we don’t do the same tomorrow. We started well, and at the same level as on Wednesday against Lithuania. Later on, the balls didn’t go in, with fouls, penalties and outbursts . We were still in the game thanks to the defense. At the beginning of the half the two Greeks turned the score around and it looked like it wasn’t going in our direction. Still the guys showed a lot of character, even those who came off the bench brought us extras. I’m glad we did it well at the end. Tomorrow is what which is really important.”