Denmark shattered the dream of a seventh planetary title for the French men’s handball team by dominating the 2023 World Cup final 34 to 29 on Sunday in Stockholm. The Blues, Olympic champions in 2021 in Tokyo, failed to digest the first ten nightmarish minutes, and let the Danes go down in the history of the Men’s World Cup with an unprecedented three pass (2019, 2021, 2023).
Luka Karabatic and his teammates, unsettled by the Danish aggressiveness and the efficiency of full-back Simon Pytlick, completely missed the start of their final: after fifteen minutes of play, they were trailing 12-7. But the Blues let the storm pass and came back to the score little by little to rally the locker room with a single goal behind (16-15) under the impetus of Nedim Remili (five goals in the first period).
Thanks to Dika Mem, France came back up to the Danes at the start of the second period (16-16), but never managed to get ahead and even found themselves relegated to four lengths (31-27 ) five minutes from the final whistle. Despite a last burst to come back to two points (31-29), the Blues did not manage to reverse the situation and offer Nikola Karabatic a fifth and final world title for his last appearance at 38 in a World Cup.
“We didn’t manage to come back in the second half, it was complicated, they played well, but he didn’t miss much,” captain Luka Karabatic told BeIN Sports.
