Sports 2008-

[CTG]

Romania (just because Sania is injured, or else they can be 2nd )

Romania will have nice suck versus Hungary - not because of Sania, but because we are better than those gipsies!

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

My guesses:

A 1 France 2 Hungary 3 Argentina 4 Slovakia 5 Romania 6 Australia
B 1 Spain 2 Croatia 3 Sweden 4 South Korea 5 Cuba 6 Kuwait
C 1 Germany 2 Tunisia 3 Russia 4 Poland 5 Macedonia 6 Algeria
D 1 Denmark 2 Norway 3 Egypt 4 Serbia 5 Brazil 6 Saudi Arabia

[Chulk]

My guesses:

A 1 France 2 Hungary 3 Argentina 4 Slovakia 5 Romania 6 Australia
B 1 Spain 2 Croatia 3 Sweden 4 South Korea 5 Cuba 6 Kuwait
C 1 Germany 2 Tunisia 3 Russia 4 Poland 5 Macedonia 6 Algeria
D 1 Denmark 2 Norway 3 Egypt 4 Serbia 5 Brazil 6 Saudi Arabia

May God listen to you!

[CTG]

Let's see...

Group A: Töff, CTG/Poo/Zak, Meganium, Friker
Group B: Mislav, Halfgammon
Group C: Kalpens/DJ
Group D: Bonzai/Lise/SB/Lene, dstien, Duplode

Quite an interesting tournament for Stunts pipsqueaks!

My tips

Group A: 1 France 2 Hungary 3 Romania 4 Argentina 5 Slovakia 6 Australia
Group B: 1 Croatia 2 Spain 3 South Korea 4 Sweden 5 Cuba 6 Kuwait
Group C: 1 Germany 2 Russia 3 Poland 4 Tunisia 5 Macedonia 6 Algeria
Group D: 1 Denmark 2 Egypt 3 Serbia 4 Norway 5 Brazil 6 Saudi Arabia

[Krys TOFF]

My guesses:
A 1 France 2 Hungary 3 Argentina 4 Slovakia 5 Romania 6 Australia

May God listen to you!

Don't dream too much, Argentina will loose versus Romania and Slovakia. They sill end 5th, beating Australia only I think.

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

My guesses:
A 1 France 2 Hungary 3 Argentina 4 Slovakia 5 Romania 6 Australia

May God listen to you!

Don't dream too much, Argentina will loose versus Romania and Slovakia. They sill end 5th, beating Australia only I think.

I remember there was a very good Argentinian handball team some years ago in the WCH, finishing fifth in the group where all the other teams finished later in the top6 on that WCH, and meant some threat to those teams - not including Hungary, who beat them by 12 goals - but they were really good. It's hard to compare the strength of the European and the non-European teams, but Hungary are clearly much better than Slovakia, and a bit more than Romania. I think Argentina can beat them! Australia is the outsider, take it for granted, on the opening game, they will lose by 20-25 goals against Hungary. 

Edit: Croatia-South Korea 27-26... surprisingly close... dirty Asians!

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

Results in our group:

Slovakia-Argentina 27-25
Hungary-Australia 41-17

Weak game by SVK and HUN, too...

The first real big game:

Germany-Russia 26-26

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

Damned Slovaks! Really lucky draw for them against us. What's more, they beat Romania (it was about the first time when I wanted to see Romania winning in sports), so we brought that result to the main round.

Surprisingly, Russia and Spain are not in the main round!

Our group:

Croatia 4, France 4, Sweden 2, Hungary 1, Slovakia 1, South Korea 0 pts.

The other:

Denmark 4, Germany 4, Macedonia 2, Serbia 2, Poland 0, Norway 0.

My guess:

E 1 FRA 2 CRO 3 SWE 4 HUN 5 SVK 6 ROK in the end.
F 1 DEN 2 GER 3 SRB 4 NOR 5 POL 6 MKD

BÖFF!!!

[Krys TOFF]

1st qualif round impressions :
Suprising Macedonia, kicking out decreasing Russia.
Confirmation of Sweden's come-back. Still not back to the higly dominative team of the 90s, but improving tournament after tournament with a young team. Probably back to the top for the next Olympics when its players will have learn some more experience.
Confirmation that South Korea can always surprise any top team, kicking out Spain from main round.
Strong Germany back after a slow start versus Russia (not penalizing for them as Russia is eliminated from main round) with a good victory versus Poland.
Solid Denmark and Croatia, it was expected too.
As for France, well, domination in score is not so real, Bertrand Gilles is not really replaced but yet an increasing French team able to improve its performance when opposition is there, like versus Slovakia and Hungary. France end the 1st round with the best defence of all groups, that's a good news for the next matchs. And Daniel Narcisse is back after beeing ill at the start of the tournament, so I have good hopes for France.

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

LOL Slovakia is good! Beat Korea! It seems in our preliminary group not France's opponents were too weak... France was too strong. Let's see HUN-CRO tonight, the two teams know each other, in their last match on ECH qualifiers, Hungary won at home 30-28. Clearly much more chance than against there was against France! My beat is a close loss: 32-29 to Croatia.

[Krys TOFF]

Hungary lost versus Croatia, but with a not so sharp score : 27-22.
Good result of Hungary versus Sweden.
On 1st group, France and Croatia are already qualified for semi-finals, with no defeat so far. Last match of the round will be France-CRoatia, result will only define the opponents according to 2nd group results.
Hungary can end 3rd of the group if they beat South Korea.

On 2nd group, Germany, Poland, Denmark and Norway can still be qualified, much sharper fight than on 2st group.

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

The France-Croatia match will have no importance. These 2 teams are really the best, they will win their semi finals, and will meet in the final to decide the biggest things. It's a pity that Hungary is not in the other group or there are no quarter final stage, they maybe would have a chance to make the semi finals.

Now 6th place is realistic for Hungary. We can beat Korea I think (tip: 28-26 to HUN), and it's 95%, that it would mean a 3rd place in our group. Slovakia-Sweden can be a very big match. For the 5th/6th placement match, we will probably meet the loser of the Germany-Denmark game, so I think the 6th place is more realistic for us. That is my guess for the Hungarian team.

Tips for final medals: 1 Croatia 2 France 3 Denmark

Russia is really sucking dick! Slovakia is surprisingly strong.

[Usrin]

Slovakia is surprisingly strong.

It's not a suprise. 

Usrin The Slovak

[CTG]

Usrin The Slovak

Consult with Friker...

[Krys TOFF]

Croatia 22-19 France.
Croatian B team is slightly stronger than French B-team.
I hope to see the same teams in final and that the result will be the opposite with the A-teams.

Germany eliminated by Denmark, semi-finals will be Denmark-France and Croatia-Poland.
Battle for 5th place between Hungary and Germany, battle for 7th place between Sweden and Serbia, battle for 9th place between Slovakia and Norway.
Bets :
Denmark 24-31 France
Croatia 27-22 Poland
Hungary 21-29 Germany
Sweden 32-20 Serbia
Slovakia 24-22 Norway