XX Women Handball World Championship - Brasil 2011

Guardo bem na memoria o excelente jogo que fizemos contra a Dinamarca no último mundial disputado na China. Para vencermos o jogo foi necessário jogar de forma quase perfeita. Se hoje o conseguirmos fazer da mesma forma estou certo que Angola seguirá para as meias-finais. Estar já entre as 8 melhores deste mundial é por si só um feito assinalável, estar entre as 4 primeiras já é um sonho que estas atletas merecem. Tenho a sorte e o privilégio de trabalhar no Clube Desportivo 1º de Agosto com 7 atletas integrantes desta selecção.

Desejo muita sorte para a Selecção de Angola no jogo de Hoje!

Preview of Denmark vs. Angola

Time for revenge?

It was an Angolan 28:23 main round victory in Yangzhou, China, which was the reason for missing the semi-final at the World Championship 2009 for Denmark. “Maybe it is pay back time now,” Danish coach Jan Pytlick hopes previously to the quarter-finals against the African Champion (14.30 local time) in Sao Paulo. “We are really looking forward to this match, but Angola played a great tournament,” Pytlick added. His team was the lucky extra time winner over Japan in the eight finals, as Angola surprised Korea with a one-goal margin in the round of the last 16 teams.

“Denmark is the clear favourite,” Angolan coach Francisco Eduardo said, but at the same time he hopes: “We played good, and we will give all to win this match.” The currently best Angolan result was rank seven at the World Championship 2007 in France after beating nations like France and Hungary. Now the African Champion hopes for the huge sensation. “We know the decisive big points of Denmark, and we try to stop exactly those points in our match play,” Eduardo said: “We learnt a lot.”

Angola surprisingly reached the second rank in the “group of death” below Norway but ahead of nations like Montenegro, Germany and Iceland. Denmark won their group ahead of Croatia and Sweden despite having a completely different team compared with the European Championship 2010: “Eight players of our 2010 squad are not in Brazil, our line-up changed totally,” Pytlick explained: “But we are not the favourite for the World Championship title, as we have so many young players – and we have to see how they cope with this situation.”

Denmark – three times Olympic Champion 1996, 2000 and 2004 – has won their last Gold medal at World Championships in 1997 in Germany. “It’s long ago and we are still building a new team for the Olympics 2012,” Pytlick said. As the Danish team ranked fourth at the last European Championship, Angola became African Champion.