Qatar defeat Russia in IHF World Men's Handball Championship
COPENHAGEN, January 21 , 2019 – The 2015 World Championship runners-up Qatar ended a disappointing Germany/Denmark 2019 campaign with a win in the President's Cup to claim 13th, beating Russia by six goals on Sunday.
Qatar coach Valero Rivera admitted in the post-match media conference that the President's Cup was not his sides' goal for Germany/Denmark 2019 but revealed that the path his side went down had an unexpected positive ending.
“We made big mistakes in the preliminary round," he said, “but after the group stage the team showed that they are a 'team' in these two matches here in Cologne."
His Qatari team started slowly against Russia, down 2:0 in the opening two minutes, but thanks to three straight goals from the eventual best player of the match, Youssef Ali, they took the lead (3:2 – eighth minute) and never looked back for the remainder of the match.
Leading by three at half-time, they doubled the lead by the end of the game to six (34:28) as both Ali and Frankis Marko ended with eight goals each, with both teams also seeing a player shown red after three two-minute suspensions, with Russia's Maksim Mikhalin going to the spectator seats in the 41st minute and then five minutes later Wajdi Sinen joining him (46th minute).
Following the final buzzer, Qatar were presented with the President's Cup on court by IHF President Dr Hassan Moustafa.
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