Men's Handball: We fought till the end, this is our real face – Bánhidi

"I'm sad because we didn't win the match," said Máté Lékai. "We wanted to show that we have more in us than what you had seen in the previous game. We started badly, missed the opportunities, and our defense was not stable enough. Then we slowly got ourselves together, thanks to the great saves as well. Anything can happen in overtime, sometimes we were chasing the score, and sometimes we were leading. I'm sad that we didn't get to win. We were tired because we were playing our ninth game of the World Championship, not to mention the double extra time. It would have been nice to have finished with a win, but we have to bear in mind that there were many teams in contention for a place in the final eight. We must be realistic in our assessment of the tournament. We need to play better and improve in many areas."

"We started very badly, but we came back, however, we were unlucky at the end," said Richárd Bodó. “I think it's a punishment to play a match like this after so many games, it drained out our remaining energy. In the end, we were unlucky that we did not score. Congratulations to Egypt!"

"We had our opportunities to score at the beginning, but we didn't convert them to points,” started Bence Bánhidi. “In the second half, our defense came together, and we played much better. We need to draw strength from that because we came back into a game where our opponent was already 5-6 goals up. We fought till the end; this is our real face."

"We have to be happy that we made it to the final eight, but after what happened, we have to learn from it and draw conclusions," the pivot player continued. "Because we can't play like we did against Denmark, and then we did play better against Norway, but we started very badly in today's game, so we have a lot to improve in." He also added that they showed in the second half what this team is capable of.

WORLD MEN'S HANDBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
FOR SEVENTH PLACE
EGYPT–HUNGARY 36–35 (17–11, 28–28, 31–31, 33–33) – after two extra times
Stockholm, 8980spectators.R:Kurtagic, Wetterwik (Sweden)
EGYPT:HENDAVI – Saad2,Mahmud3,AHMED MOHAMED5,SHEBIB5,A. ZEIN12 (5),EL-WAKIL5. Subs: MOHAMED ALY (goalkeeper), El-Masry1,S. El-Deera, Y. El-Deera1, Abdelhak1,Mesilhi, Sanad1. Head coach:Roberto Parrondo
HUNGARY:SZÉKELY – Rodríguez P.2,ANCSIN G.5,A. Sipos, Bánhidi4,BODÓ7, LÉKAI7 (2). Subs:Bóka3,Z. Ilic3,Szita3,M. Rosta, Hanusz, Ligetvári1. Head coach:Chema Rodríguez
Result minute by minute. Minute 4:4–0.10:9–4.15:12–7.23:16–9.42:22–16.44:22–19.46:25–19.49:25–22.54:28–24
Exclusions:6, ill. 12 perc
7-meter throws:5/5, and 4/2
COACHES' CORNER
Roberto Parrondo:– I'm happy with my team, we played a very tough match with the Hungarians at the end of the World Championship, but we managed to win this battle. We were tired at the end as we had prepared for sixty minutes... But what decided the game in our favor was, I would say, the one goal we were better by, because it was a battle of equal teams. I was very pleased with the fight and intensity my players showed in their ninth game.

RESULT OF THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
1. Denmark
2. France
3. Spain
4. Sweden
5. Germany
6. Norway
7. Egypt
8. HUNGARY
9. Croatia
10. Slovenia
11. Serbia
12. Iceland
13. Portugal
14. Netherlands
15. Poland
16. Bahrein
17. Brazil
18. Montenegro
19. Argentina
20. United States
21. Belgium
22. Qatar
23. Cape Verde
24. Iran
25. Tunisia
26. Chile
27. North Macedonia
28. South Korea
29. Saudi Arabia
30. Morocco
31. Algeria
32. Uruguay

Translated by Vanda Orosz