No matter how the second half plays out, this is easily our worst tournament since that disaster back in Sweden in 2011. We’re playing without any sense of direction or cohesion, and even our biggest stars, Dustin and Vory, seem completely checked out mentally. As for Goluza and Cementer, there’s honestly no point in wasting my breath on them anymore.
FRA-SLO 95% - 5% The Americans need to pull off one of their best performances since gaining independence if they want to walk away with this one. Honestly, I’m calling it now: I see a similar outcome for them as we saw against the Spaniards in the group stage, just another loss. DEN-ESP 50% - 50% Anything can happen here. The Danes haven't forgotten that heartbreaking loss in the finals two years ago. KAT-GER 40% - 60% The Germans should take this. They've been playing consistently well throughout this tournament and they are absolutely starving for success after an eight-year drought. I haven't watched much of the Qatar side, but let's be real—if they weren't playing on home turf, their chances would be even slimmer than they already are. USA-POL 55% - 45% Just looking at the tradition here. We haven't really played anyone significant in this tournament; every opponent so far has felt like a third or fourth-tier team on the world stage. To me, Poland falls right into that second tier. They played a solid game today, forced the Swedish woman into their rhythm, and managed to grind out a clever win.
Iceland is a total disaster, and honestly, it’s no surprise they got absolutely crushed by Canada in the qualifiers. Now, in this latest qualifying cycle for the European Championship, they’ve gone and run straight into the Mexicans.
Rojewski went 1 for 6 from the field and racked up 5 technical fouls. Honestly, he looked just as lost against the Russians as he did before. This upcoming showdown between him and Alilovic is going to be an absolute train wreck.😁
George Ward7 said:The main thing is that just a few days ago they were all making a huge scene about how they were going to knock us off our pedestal.🤣
The Canadians are just the definition of mediocrity.
Bob sees Mexicans🤣
Since we’re already on the subject of Bobby's brilliant observations, I don't know if you heard that one during the Spain-Canada game—"the Spaniards have the beardiest roster in the whole tournament."🙏
The Germans have this incredible chance to finally break a seven-year drought and claw their way into a major semifinal, especially considering they shouldn't even be in the running at this tournament. They’re facing off against Egypt in the round of 16, and if things go their way, they'll run into whoever comes out on top of the Qatar-Austria matchup in the quarterfinals.
Honestly, I’m enjoying reading all of this so much that I’m thinking about copying the whole thing into a Word doc just so I can have it printed out and kept forever. Every other comment on this thread is basically just noise at this point. R. I. P. Paul
Yesterday was a masterclass in what real fans can do when they actually show up and push their team toward a win. That draw we pulled off last night? Honestly, we’re the ones who earned that result.
Richard Lee3 said:Experience doesn't mean a damn thing here, at least not in our neck of the woods, because this roster is actually pretty seasoned and we've got a core group that’s already been through several major international tournaments together. It all comes down to motivation. If I follow your logic, even the US national handball team would be considered "mature" just because they stopped blowing third-place games, like how Spain did back at the 2008 Olympics.
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I honestly don't even know what you're trying to get at here. We walked away with a medal, which is a win, period; if we had somehow finished fourth, everyone would have been tearing us to shreds in the press. When I talk about being "mature," I'm talking about the mental toughness and the sheer seriousness required to play these consolation matches after you've just been emotionally drained in a semifinal. Until two years ago, we were constantly choking in those third-place games. Clearly, you're one of those people who thinks anything less than gold is a failure, so that's your problem—you don't need to lecture me.
Personally, I’m pretty happy with how things are looking; we're keeping this winning streak alive, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters. We aren't blowing those third-place games like we used to, which honestly just goes to show that we've finally grown up a bit as a team. It looks like the Italians are finally finding their footing again after being nowhere to be found for seven years, while the Canadians seem to be on a slow slide downward—they haven't even touched a medal since the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Losing isn't even the worst part, it’s just pathetic; Pavić was absolutely killing it against Mexico, but today they're basically handing out goals from the locker room.
Absolute disaster for the Canadians. They lead the whole game by 3 or 4 points and then just completely fall apart. And this one player was an absolute wreck toward the end; nobody even had the guts to step up and take charge.
The second quarter wrapped up 7-5 in favor of the Canadians, which is just insane because I remember when you’d see that many goals in an entire game, yet here we are seeing 12 scored in just the first quarter. I honestly can't wrap my head around how poorly the Mexicans are playing defense; they've conceded several goals now using the exact same pattern over and over again.
Alex Barrett3 said:Great. 👍 Historically, we’ve always had the edge over the Italians compared to the Spaniards. If we actually play with half a brain like we did today, there isn't a prayer the Italians can even stay within striking distance. The only way this game ends up in some "shady territory" is if the officiating gets weirdly biased, Tempesti starts pulling miracles out of thin air, and our guys have a complete meltdown on the pitch—but that would require the Italians to actually show some offensive spark, which is a big if.
Look, I'm not disrespecting the Italians or their talent, but if we approach the game correctly, we're easily three goals better than them. And then we've got the final, which I assume will be USA-Mexico.
I'm with you.👍 Anything other than a USA-MEXICO final would be a massive shocker to me. You should never count the Canadians out, but my gut tells me the Americans are going to steamroll them.
Italy-Spain 10-6. Final score. Everything comes down to Thursday at 3 PM when we face Italy! What can I even say about those Italians? Their biggest assets are definitely that sharpshooting perimeter play and their veteran keeper, Tempesti.
Look, there’s no way Porobić told Tičić to go after Bušlje, but I honestly can’t wrap my head around why a coach with that much experience would call a timeout with only 14 seconds left on the clock, especially when his players are already a total wreck from losing and missing out on yet another podium finish.
Anyway, the Italians are absolutely steamrolling the Spaniards after the third quarter—it’s sitting at 8-5.