São Paulo – Starting next Friday (2nd), the Tunisia national women’s handball team will play the World Championship of the category in São Paulo. The Tunisians are not favourites in the competition, but theirs is a good team, according to the Brazilian team’s coach, Morten Soubak. The Brazilian team is in group C, the same as Tunisia’s, and the two will play each other on December 9th, the last day of the first phase. “Theirs is a good team, they are physically well, it will be a tough match, no doubt,” Soubak said to ANBA regarding the Tunisian team.
The World Championship will be played by 24 national teams. In addition to Brazil and Tunisia, group C will comprise Romania, Japan, Cuba and France, with matches played at the Ibirapuera Gymnasium in São Paulo. Norway, Montenegro, Angola, Germany, China and Iceland are in group A and will play in the city of Santos. Russia, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain and Australia are in group B and will play in Barueri, in the Greater São Paulo region. Group D, whose matches will be held in São Bernardo do Campo, comprises Denmark, Sweden, Argentina, Uruguay, Croatia and Ivory Coast. From the last-eight phase on, all matches will take place in São Paulo.
The Brazilian team has never won the World Championship. The title usually goes to European countries. “The sport is dominated by the Europeans, in both the men’s and women’s categories, but even more so for women’s,” says Soubak, adding that handball is better developed in the European continent. As a result, teams from the Americas, Asia and Africa usually do not get the trophy. The latest tournament, held in 2009, was won by Russia.
In the last few days, the Brazilian team played several friendly matches in different cities in the state of São Paulo. The team played Montenegro, Spain and the Netherlands, and won all three matches. The Brazilian team qualified for the event due to its being the host country. The country’s team finished 15th in the last tournament. In the Pan-American Championship, however, the Brazilian team has won several Gold medals, one of them this year.
Soubak says he has never played against Tunisia as a coach. The Tunisian team qualified for this year’s championship because it won the silver medal in the African Championship. In the last World Championship, the Tunisians finished 14th, one place above Brazil. In the African tournament, however, they usually finish high.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
