France won over Brazil, 34:26 (19:11) their first game of the preliminary group A of the Olympic Tournamment. China will be their next opponent , on Tuesday morning, at 8´clock.
The squad coached by Claude Onesta forced the pace from the very beginning and let zero chances for Bruno Souza and his teammates. The favourites were in clear advantage after 30 minutes, 19:11. In the second half, Onesta rotated his roster and the difference grew, 31:19 with 10 minutes to go was the biggest margin that the European Champions from 2006 had. In the remaining time they paced themselves and the "auriverde" team managed to lose only by eight, 34:26.
As the brand new World Handball Player of 2007, Niko did well in his 50 minutes played, scoring five times and giving eight assists. "We knew that we are much stronger than them, but we knew also the fact that teams like Germany and Poland had problems with them at the last WCh. We wanted to dominate with our defensive work in order to score easy goals on second wave and fastbreaks. And we reached our goal. Afterwards, we have just administrated our advance on them", said Niko for the French news agency, AFP.
Statistics
France - Brazil 34:26 (19:11)
France : Omeyer (6 saves), Karaboué (8/2 saves) - Fernandez(5/1), Dinart (1), Burdet, Gille (4), Gille (4), Narcisse (1), Girault (7), Karabatic (5), Kempe (3), Abati, Abalo (2), Guigou (2).
Brazil : Santos (9/1 saves), Vasconcelos (4 saves) - Pacheco Filho (1), Ertel (5), Rui (1) Bruno Souza (1), Bortolini (4/1), Justino Helio (1), Laureano (1), Alexandre Silva (2), Ribeiro (4), Bruno Santana (2), Pizzinato, Oliveira (4).
