2023 IHF Men's World Handball Championship

[slackovic]

That was actually the only game I missed yesterday, margin was 55.5 not 50 unfortunately.

Right, I thought it was over 50 goals. Too bad but great job on this late ticket. Really a good win

But I more than made up for it with late ticket, you know the language so you will understand and others can probably get the gist as well. Football games market is both to score, rest should be obvious.


The clock is running in this competition even when we have penalty. So under is the market to go for. That is my main tip for today Croatia - Egypt under 56.5. Egypt is a big under team and we like to wait for last seconds of the attack as well. Should be free money. My first bigger stake in this competition.

I don't know... Croatia didn't play very good defense but they played excellent offense in friendly games before this tournament. It could be that the score will be over 56.5. I wish you luck but I'll skip this one.

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[Trofo]

I don't know... Croatia didn't play very good defense but they played excellent offense in friendly games before this tournament. It could be that the score will be over 56.5. I wish you luck but I'll skip this one.

Yeah but that were friendlies and we were playing against week teams or very attacking team in case of Macedonia. You don't really play defense in friendly games since you are careful to avoid injuries. Handball is a sport full of contacts and most good teams play proper defense only when it matters. We played 3 times against Egypt on World Cup so far and games ended with 40, 44 and 52 goals. That game with 52 goals was from 2003 so not really relevant. I am quite sure 56.5 should be a safe margin today. But as I said these are early rounds and smaller bets just to test the water I start with serious bets after I see the teams actually play.

[cygan]

and here are the results from yesterday... unfortunately without any big surprises
spain, sweden, iceland, iran, slovenia, cape verde and hungary leave the halls as winners after the second matchday



and with today's third day another 16 nations including defending title holders denmark start into the tournament

[LTU_btc]

I watched a bit of Germany - Qatar game and I was surprised that Qatar have such good level team. But then I looked that Qatar is strongest team in Asia in recent years, so maybe such performance isn't surprising. Any way, they lost game, Germany had control of game, most part of game having few goals lead.
Morocco lost to USA and it's first big surprise so far. Don't follow handball that much to put bets on unders/overs, so, I simply go with Croatia ML.

[Trofo]

I watched a bit of Germany - Qatar game and I was surprised that Qatar have such good level team. But then I looked that Qatar is strongest team in Asia in recent years, so maybe such performance isn't surprising. Any way, they lost game, Germany had control of game, most part of game having few goals lead.
Morocco lost to USA and it's first big surprise so far. Don't follow handball that much to put bets on unders/overs, so, I simply go with Croatia ML.

I watched whole Croatia game and before everyone says how poor we were I am gonna say Egypt was great. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we see this Egypt side playing in semi finals.

We didn't have any chance with such poor defense and keepers that can't defend a single ball. Next 2 games will be easy for both but then we will have to win against someone good, probably Denmark.

[Sithara007]

Well.. I never expected Croatia to lose by such a big margin. Anyway, good luck next time. And despite overwhelming odds, Morocco lost to USA by a tiny margin of 27-28. Yesterday's matches turned out to be quite interesting actually.

Let's discuss today's matches. Here are the odds that I got from various sources:

Iceland vs Hungary: ICE +115
Poland vs Slovenia: POL -125, SLV +160
Montenegro vs Iran: MNT -1111, IRN +900
Portugal vs South Korea: POR -1250, KOR +1200
France vs Saudi Arabia: FRA -850, KSA +850
Brazil vs Uruguay: BRA -1650, URU +1650
Spain vs Chile: ESP -1550, CHL +1550
Sweden vs Cape Verde: SVG -1350, CPV +1350
 
The first two matches are going to be close, apart from that others are going to be one-sided.

[casperBGD]

I watched a bit of Germany - Qatar game and I was surprised that Qatar have such good level team.

-snip

Qatar has some players from outside and that makes difference (expected that from them on WC, but it obviously harder to get that in football)

anyway, Serbia is in that group as well, beating Algeria in first round, but will be harder against Germany and Qatar, but I do expect us to win some there

didn't bet so far on competition, will put some goals on today

[Trofo]

didn't bet so far on competition, will put some goals on today

Margins are spot on today, I don't see any obvious mistakes like in last two days. I took under in Poland-Slovenia match but the margin is set a bit too low for me to be really comfortable with it. I would have taken Jedraszczyk over 0.5 or over 1.5 if any bookie I know offered him. He is not starting matches for Poland but he is young player, very quick on his feet and I am quite sure he will go over that margin and score a couple of goals.

That and Island - Hungary are the only matches worth watching today. We could have a surprise here maybe, everybody is talking how good Hungary played lately but I did not watch them so taking just +4.5 handicap.

[slackovic]

I watched whole Croatia game and before everyone says how poor we were I am gonna say Egypt was great. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we see this Egypt side playing in semi finals.

We didn't have any chance with such poor defense and keepers that can't defend a single ball. Next 2 games will be easy for both but then we will have to win against someone good, probably Denmark.

I still think that Croatia could have played better yesterday. I know that Egypt is a very good team but to me it looked like anyone could have beaten us yesterday. Now I regret not putting some money on Egypt because I knew that Croatia always start tournaments lousy and with every game they improve their performance. Even if Egypt is a great team, Croatia still allowed too many easy shots for Egypt players. And you can't expect that a keeper saves a shot when a player comes in full sprint without defense getting in his way.

Well.. I never expected Croatia to lose by such a big margin. Anyway, good luck next time. And despite overwhelming odds, Morocco lost to USA by a tiny margin of 27-28. Yesterday's matches turned out to be quite interesting actually.

Let's discuss today's matches. Here are the odds that I got from various sources:

Iceland vs Hungary: ICE +115
Poland vs Slovenia: POL -125, SLV +160
Montenegro vs Iran: MNT -1111, IRN +900
Portugal vs South Korea: POR -1250, KOR +1200
France vs Saudi Arabia: FRA -850, KSA +850
Brazil vs Uruguay: BRA -1650, URU +1650
Spain vs Chile: ESP -1550, CHL +1550
Sweden vs Cape Verde: SVG -1350, CPV +1350
 
The first two matches are going to be close, apart from that others are going to be one-sided.

I agree. There's not much chance of a surprise in any game except for the first two that you mentioned. I'm not that into betting so I have never seen this type of odds but I get the idea.

[Daniel91]

I don't know... Croatia didn't play very good defense but they played excellent offense in friendly games before this tournament. It could be that the score will be over 56.5. I wish you luck but I'll skip this one.

Yeah but that were friendlies and we were playing against week teams or very attacking team in case of Macedonia. You don't really play defense in friendly games since you are careful to avoid injuries. Handball is a sport full of contacts and most good teams play proper defense only when it matters. We played 3 times against Egypt on World Cup so far and games ended with 40, 44 and 52 goals. That game with 52 goals was from 2003 so not really relevant. I am quite sure 56.5 should be a safe margin today. But as I said these are early rounds and smaller bets just to test the water I start with serious bets after I see the teams actually play.

It is true that Croatia usually has problems at the beginning of every tournament, but the fact is that Croatia has not been a handball power or a favorite in any tournament for a long time.
Does anyone even remember the last time the Croatian handball team won a medal in a competition?
The Croatian handball league is very weak and uncompetitive, and it seems that Croatia will not participate in the second consecutive Olympic games, which would be a disaster for Croatian handball.
In order to qualify for the Olympic Games, they must reach the quarter-finals of this world championship, and after losing to Egypt, they will most likely have to beat Denmark in the second stage of this competition, which will be an almost impossible mission.
This defeat psychologically shook the Croatian players a lot and I would even now take a risk and bet on the USA winning against Croatia.

[slackovic]

It is true that Croatia usually has problems at the beginning of every tournament, but the fact is that Croatia has not been a handball power or a favorite in any tournament for a long time.
Does anyone even remember the last time the Croatian handball team won a medal in a competition?
The Croatian handball league is very weak and uncompetitive, and it seems that Croatia will not participate in the second consecutive Olympic games, which would be a disaster for Croatian handball.
In order to qualify for the Olympic Games, they must reach the quarter-finals of this world championship, and after losing to Egypt, they will most likely have to beat Denmark in the second stage of this competition, which will be an almost impossible mission.
This defeat psychologically shook the Croatian players a lot and I would even now take a risk and bet on the USA winning against Croatia.

To me it looks like Croatian handball is in a steady downtrend. Their peak began twenty years ago when Croatia won the gold medal in Portugal and lasted for the next 10 years. After that their form is in a constant downtrend. You say that Croatian handball league is weak and uncompetitive. It's true, but so is Croatian football league and yet Croatia won two medals in the last two World Cups. Most Croatian handball players are playing in foreign leagues just like in football.

[Trofo]

This defeat psychologically shook the Croatian players a lot and I would even now take a risk and bet on the USA winning against Croatia.

Go for it if you believe that USA has the quality to take the game. Odds are @17 now that means that those odds pose immense value for you. But don't be fatalistic we can win against USA even with C team and playing without keepers. We will win next two games easy, we will be even more concentrated after this loss against Egypt. But we don't have what it takes to fight it out with top teams. And this Egypt team is good, you will see in the next games. They even have results from last 2 competitions and if creating odds wasn't psychological game, Egypt would have been made favorite yesterday with odds around 1.5. I must say I did not want to bat against my Croatia so I missed on that freebie but I took money on under goals bet at least.

Our handball is in decline for years and it will end same as basketball. Yes we have bad league but that did not stop our two strongest clubs to have good seasons in europe before, now that has become impossible as well. It is all in decline and we will need to wait quite a long time before we see our handballers fight for the medals again but we are still miles ahead of countries where handball isn't an important sport.

[cygan]

as you have come to expect from me, this time i post the results from yesterday. especially the last 4 games were very high scoring



tonight already the second matchday starts and both host countries sweden and poland play their second match today

[Sithara007]

There was a major upset yesterday, as Slovenia managed to defeat Poland. Poland were the favorites as per the betting odds. And the Montenegro vs Iran match turned out to be closer than expected, with Montenegro sneaking in with 34-31. Odds for today's matches are as follows:

Egypt vs Morocco: EGY -5000, MAR +6600
Norway vs Argentina: NOR -3333, ARG +2000
Denmark vs Bahrain: DAN -5000, BHR +3900
Croatia vs USA: CRO -5000, USA +2500
Germany vs Serbia: GER -139, SRB +190
North Macedonia vs Netherlands: MAC +500, NED -400
Belgium vs Tunisia: BLG +425, TUN -345
Qatar vs Algeria: QAT -455, ALG +600

[cygan]

slovenia had a brilliant evening against poland yesterday and defeated the hosts 32:23 with an excellent defensive performance. hungary qualified with a brilliant comeback against iceland, who came from behind in the first 50 minutes to win unexpectedly. in the other match of the day, portugal beat korea republic to secure their place in the main round.
also in the main round are: spain, france, slovenia, sweden and brazil



and here are the matches that are currently running or will be played tonight

[slackovic]

I see that Croatia manages to beat USA with a really bit goal difference. Who would have expected this after they lost to Egypt in that way. But that just proves my point that Croatia usually start tournaments lousy and then gets better as tournament progresses. OK, USA is no match to Egypt when it comes to handball, but it's a really nice victory to boost morale.

Other results from yesterday's games are as I expected.

[cygan]

on the fifth day of the tournament there was the first victory of debutant Belgium (31-29 vs tunisia)



today several teams have their last chance to reach the next round. the full schedule of matches for today

[Sithara007]

Quite a few exciting matches yesterday, with Iceland getting a win against South Korea and Poland managing to outclass Saudi Arabia. Groups A, B, C and D have now completed all the matches. The teams that are relegated to Presidents Cup so far are Chile, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay and South Korea.

Today's odds are as follows:

Algeria vs Germany: GER -5000, ALG +2500
Qatar vs Serbia: SRB -286, QAT +350
Netherlands vs Norway: NOR -357, NED +450
North Macedonia vs Argentina: MAC +180, ARG -139
Belgium vs Bahrain: BLG -110, BHR +145
Croatia vs Morocco: CRO -5000, MAR +3300
Tunisia vs Denmark: DAN -5000, TUN +4400
Egypt vs USA: EGY -5000, USA +4000

[slackovic]

on the fifth day of the tournament there was the first victory of debutant Belgium (31-29 vs tunisia)

/snip

Wait, Belgium is a debutante in the World Handball Championship? I really did not know that and it's a surprise that they managed to beat Tunisia. Tunisia is a nation that plays good handball so I was surprised to see your post.

I watched a little of the Portugal vs Hungary game yesterday. What shocked me is that Hungary managed to score only two goals in the first 20 minutes of the game. I didn't have the time to watch the rest of the game but I see that they managed to save their honor in the end.

This group phase of the tournament is pretty boring if I may say. In majority of the games the difference in quality of the opponents is just too big to bring some excitement. Maybe the game between Croatia and Egypt was somewhat unexpected. I'm looking forward to the next phase where there should be more interesting games.

[Trofo]

This group phase of the tournament is pretty boring if I may say. In majority of the games the difference in quality of the opponents is just too big to bring some excitement. Maybe the game between Croatia and Egypt was somewhat unexpected. I'm looking forward to the next phase where there should be more interesting games.

Constitution of groups is such that every group should have 2 good teams so that means at least one game when outcome is not 100% certain. That group with Island, Hungary and Portugal is actually the most even one in the tournament and before it started any of these 3 could have been aiming for first spot.

My only bet today is Quatar - Serbia under 58.5. This tournament is actually quite full of goals and I expect that to drop a lot in later stages when stakes are higher.