The Africans made their debut at the World Championship the year before last in Egypt, where they started with a defeat against Hungary. They lost the remaining matches by default due to the coronavirus infection in the team.
Before today’s historic win over Uruguay, they had to overcome difficulties of a different kind. Six players were moved the night before the game because the beds in the hotel cracked under them.
“I don’t understand what they were thinking at the hotel. Some of the players are two meters tall and weigh over a hundred kilos. At the same time, they had to sleep on wooden bunks that did not hold up,” Nilton Delgado, a member of the Cape Verdean expedition, told the Swedish newspaper Aftenposten.
| World Handball Championship: |
|---|
| Group A (Krakow): |
| Chile – Iran 24:25 (11:13) |
| Spain – Montenegro 30:25 (15:12) |
| Table: | |||||||
| 1. | Spain | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 30:25 | 2 |
| 2. | Iran | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 25:24 | 2 |
| 3. | Chile | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 24:25 | 0 |
| 4. | Montenegro | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 25:30 | 0 |
| Group B (Katovice): |
| Saudi Arabia – Slovenia 19:33 (8:16) |
| Table: | |||||||
| 1. | Slovenia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 33:19 | 2 |
| 2. | Francie | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 26:24 | 2 |
| 3. | Poland | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 24:26 | 0 |
| 4. | Saudi Arabia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 19:33 | 0 |
| Group C (Gothenburg): |
| Cape Verde – Uruguay 33:25 (17:11) |
| Sweden – Brazil 26:18 (11:9) |
| Table: | |||||||
| 1. | Cape Verde | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 33:25 | 2 |
| 2. | Sweden | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 26:18 | 2 |
| 3. | Uruguay | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 25:33 | 0 |
| 4. | Brazil | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 18:26 | 0 |
| Group D (Kristianstad): |
| Hungary – South Korea 35:27 (21:11) |
| Iceland – Portugal 30:26 (15:15) |
| Table: | |||||||
| 1. | Hungary | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 35:27 | 2 |
| 2. | Island | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 30:26 | 2 |
| 3. | Portugal | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 26:30 | 0 |
| 4. | South Korea | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 27:35 | 0 |
