France beat Russia (27:24), revenged the defeat in Athens and progressed in the semifinal of the tournament. On Friday they will have the chance to reach the great final!
The first quarter of the game was balanced, but the squad coached by Claude Onesta managed to take the lead (8:7/15.) and to extend it until 5 goals with 2 minutes to go from the first half (13:8). The Russians were the one who had the last word and at the half break it was 13:10 for the players in blue.
In the second half, France was in clear control of the game and its players were capable to assure themselves a margin of maximum 6 goals (21:15) with 16 minutes to go. But a couple of technical faults and a missed shot brought Russia back into the match. With 9 minutes to go, that important six goals advantage "melt" suddenly out and the scoreboard showed only 22:21 for the French players.
The match seemed to be again opened, but a "double" of Daniel "Air France" Narcisse, excellent the whole dispute, and a goal from Girault, brought the relief with 3 minutes to go. Nikola, who had a very hard time with the rival´s defence, who followed him step by step and made a priority of blocking him, scored his second goal for 26:22 and the game was practically over.
Statistics
France - Russia 27:24 (13:10)
France : Omeyer (11 saves), Karaboué - Dinart, Burdet, G. Gille (1), B. Gille (4), Narcisse (9), Girault (4/1), Karabatic (2), Kempé, Abati, Abalo (7), Guigou, Patty.
Russia : Grams (5/1 saves), Kostygov (7 saves) - Fillipov (1), Krivoshlykov (1), Evdokimov (2), Chernoivanov (4), Rastvortsev (3), Kamanin (1), Aslanyan, Koksharov (5/4), Kovalev (3), Dibirov (1), Igropulo (3/2), Ivanov.
NK22.COM
