Thursday morning in Legionów Hall began with matches for the President’s Cup. Slovakia’s national team fought with Argentina for 19th place in the entire championship. The European women lost their last match against Chile and the girls from South America lost their match against Montenegro. Finally, the winner of the 19th place is the representation of Slovakia.

For the first fifteen minutes, the teams played very closely but made many easy mistakes. When we saw score 4: 4, the Slovaks used the shorter Argentine game for a short time and thanks to two fast attacks built a three-goal advantage, which after a few minutes increased to five goals. At the time, Martina Bohner, a goalkeeper from South America defended a few balls. Thanks to this, her friends could compensate for the losses. The first half ended with the result 11: 8.

For most of the second half, the teams played on an equal level, keeping the tie result. It was not until forty-ninth minute that Argentina managed to score a lead. However, it did not end there. Moments later, after two misses from Slovakian, Giselle Pintos’s charges turned out to be a three-goal lead. The last minute of the second half was a real horror movie. The scoreboard showed a score of 23:24. Argentines had the ball, but the European women managed to capture it. After a while, one of them was fouled and the referee dictated a penalty kick. It was used by Daniel Trepacov, who led to a draw 24:24.

The next step that was to resolve this match turned out to be a series of penalty kicks. Argentines did not take advantage of the first throw and this mistake decided about their loss. Officially, Slovakia took the 19th place and Argentina 20th place at the championship.

SLOVAKIA-ARGENTINA 29:28 (11:8)(24:24)

SLOVAKIA: Olahova, Opatova – Trepacova 7, Marcincakova, Beluskova, Pastorekova, Meszaros 7, Ratvajska 5, Chovanova, Holincova 2, Kakascikova 1, Kosova 2, Michalkova 2, Galkova, Manczal 2.

ARGENTINA: Bohner, Garrido – Prado, Viviers 2, Bono 7, Cavo 7, Rios 1, Rivero, Pelatay Ritacco, Villarrazza 1, Irribarria 1, Vazquez, Azcune 2, Ballada 3, Baggio 3, Cuccuini 1.

 

QUOTES:

Rasmus Poulsen, head coach of Slovakia: We wanted to finish the championship with a good feeling. We didn’t have a good feeling during the game. In the second half, we were behind the opponent all the time. Today we had more passion. We had a huge lucky because throws from seven meter are a lottery. We are happy about this and it’s a good feeling to finish this tournament positively.

Karolina Zielonka

Photo credit: PRESSFOCUS/ZPRP

GALLERY: