Bahrain beat Belgium 30-28 in their last Group H game last night to notch up their first win in the tournament and qualify for the main round of the 28th International Handball Federation (IHF) Men’s World Handball Championship at the Malmo Arena in Sweden.
This is the second successive time that Bahrain have qualified for the main round of the championship, following their first-ever appearance in the second stage in the 2021 edition of the tournament.
Ali Merza was the star for Bahrain, netting six goals in the match including the final one for his team with less than 30 seconds left in the game and the scoreboard reading 30-27.
Although Belgium’s Nick Braun managed to score one last goal for his side with just eight seconds left until full time, there was just not enough time remaining for the Belgians to pull the game back and when the final buzzer went off, the Bahrain players were cock-a-hoop as they celebrated with their coach and the support staff.
Earlier, Belgium had started the match positively, racing to a 5-0 lead by the eighth minute, courtesy of goals by Raphael Kotters, Arber Qerimi and Yannick Glorieux.
Seemingly caught off guard by the concerted Belgian assault right from the outset, Bahrain counter-attacked with captain Hussain Alsayyad opening the scoring for his team in the ninth minute and Hasan Alsamahiji, Ahmed Fadhul, Merza and Ali Eid following suit as the kingdom’s men reduced the deficit to just two at 6-8 in the 17th minute.
Barely six minutes later, Bahrain were leading 12-9 in the 24th minute with Mohamed Mohamed and Mujtaba Alzaimoor also getting their names on the scoresheet and, when the first, 30-minute period ended, Bahrain led 15-12.
Alsayyad (twice), Eid, Merza and Mohamed then scored one after the other in the first eight minutes of the second period to push Bahrain’s lead up to five goals with the scoreboard reading 20-15 with about 21 minutes left in the game.
Reduced to playing catch-up, Belgium managed to score through Kotters, Qerimi, Tom Robyns and Kobe Serras over the next eight minutes but Fadhul, Eid, Mohammed Ali and Merza were also plugging away at the Belgian goal and, with 13 minutes left, Bahrain were leading 25-19.
That became 28-24 in the 58th minute, with Mohamed and Alsayyad (twice again) ensuring that a Belgian comeback, which saw them scoring five goals in the same period, would be of no avail.
Time was running out for the Belgians and when Fadhul made it 29-25 in favour of Bahrain with less than two minutes to go, they made one, last supreme effort to salvage the game.
Kotters, who top-scored in the match with eight goals, scored two quick goals inside 30 seconds to leave Belgium just two behind Bahrain at 27-29.
But there were only 40 seconds left in the game and when Merza scored his sixth goal of the match to make it 30-27 for Bahrain with 21 seconds remaining, Braun’s retaliating, last, desperate throw into the net with eight seconds left on the clock didn’t elicit any celebrations from him or his teammates as the scoreboard flashed the final result shortly afterwards: ‘Bahrain win 30-28’.
The victory meant that Bahrain finished in second place in the four-team group table with three points, behind reigning world champions Denmark who won all three of their preliminary round games to finish with six points.
Belgium, with two points, came in third while Tunisia, who drew their first game with Bahrain and lost the remaining two, finished last with just one point.
According to tournament rules, the top three teams from each of the eight groups go through to the main round while the last-placed teams will play the President’s Cup.
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