Handball World Cup: Les Bleus have a great time sweeping Kuwait and qualifying for the main round

Les Bleus affronteront l’Autriche, samedi, dernier match du tour préliminaire. Icon Sport – Baptiste Fernandez

After ten minutes of getting going, the French team swept aside the weak Kuwaitis 43-19 on Thursday, January 16. A second success in as many matches that allows it to ensure its presence in the main round.

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The French handball team pulverized Kuwait (43-19), one of the weak nations in this World Cup played with 32 teams, on Thursday in Porec (Croatia), to validate its ticket for the main round.

Having won by a wide margin over Qatar (37-29) in the opening match, the Blues are assured of heading to Varazdin in northern Croatia on Sunday, even before their last preliminary round match scheduled for Saturday against Austria. It is, however, of capital importance, since the points acquired against the other qualified teams will be kept for this second phase in view of the quarter-finals.

Ten minutes of running-in, Prandi has stretched his legs

In the meantime, after about ten minutes of running-in (5-5 in the 9th minute), they had the announced walkover (15-5 in the 21st, 21-8 at half-time), which allowed coach Guillaume Gille to distribute the playing time and stretch Elohim Prandi's legs. In the stands against the Qataris after returning to competition only a few days earlier (in a friendly against Portugal) following his dislocated left shoulder in early November, the left-back was this time on the team sheet (in place of Romain Lagarde). He seemed to be short of rhythm again, misplacing a ball (28th) and missing his first two shots against goalkeeper Abdulaziz Althafiri, without whom the score would have been much higher.

It has already been very tough for Kuwait (as it was on Tuesday for Algeria, crushed 47 to 22 by Denmark), limited technically and physically despite some interesting sequences and whose last participation in the World Cup dates back to 2009, also in Croatia.