Handball: Egypt suffer 24-27 defeat to Iceland in World Championship

Ahmed Ghandour , Thursday 23 Jan 2025

The Egyptian national handball team suffered a narrow defeat to Iceland in the main round of the 2025 World Men's Handball Championship on Wednesday, falling 27-24 in a hard-fought game.

Egypt
Part of the match between Egypt and Iceland Handball match during the Handball World Championship. Photo courtesy IHF website.

 

The tournament, co-hosted by Croatia, Denmark, and Norway, runs from 14 January to 2 February.

Egypt's national team advanced to the main round as group leaders after achieving a perfect record in the preliminary stage, winning all their Group D matches.

The clash saw Iceland narrowly outpace Egypt after a fiercely competitive start.

The opening minutes were evenly contested, with the score tied at 2-2 after nine minutes.

However, Iceland gradually began to pull ahead, establishing a two-goal lead by the 16th minute despite a resilient performance from Egypt's goalkeeper Karim Hendawi.

Egypt faced additional setbacks as two key players, Yehia Omar and Abdelrahman Faisal, were temporarily suspended.

Iceland capitalized on these challenges, extending their lead to 13-9 by halftime.

A missed penalty by Egypt's Mohamed Sanad in the 31st minute further compounded their struggles.

In the second half, Egypt fought valiantly to close the gap, but Iceland maintained their momentum.

By the 53rd minute, Iceland had stretched their lead to five goals.

Despite a late surge from Egypt, which narrowed the deficit to three goals, the match ended 27-24 in Iceland's favour.

With this result, Egypt was relegated to fourth place in the Group D standings.

The Pharaohs, who share the group with Croatia, Slovenia, Iceland, Argentina, and Cape Verde, have already faced Croatia and Argentina in the preliminary round.

Egypt will now focus on its upcoming matches, starting with Slovenia on Friday and Cape Verde two days later.

(For more sports news and updates, follow Ahram Online Sports on Twitter at @AO_Sports and on Facebook at AhramOnlineSports.)

Short link: