The Latvian men’s handball team lost to Belarus in the last game of the European Championship (ECC) qualifying cycle on Sunday at 26:30 (13:10), unable to qualify for the final tournament.
The most productive with five goals scored in the Latvian national team were Māris Veršakovs and Elvijs Borodovskis, four “goals” for Dainis Krištopāns, but Oskars Arājs and Egils Politers stood out with three goals. The Belarusian team had six goals for Vadim Gaidchenko, but Vyacheslav Bokan scored less than one.
The guests managed to score the first goal of the game only in the introduction of the 13th minute, when Vershakov reached 1: 5. In the next two minutes, Krištopāns was twice inaccurate, but then three goals in a row allowed the Latvian team to reach 4: 5. In the 20th minute, Uvis Strazdiņš reached a draw for the first time 6: 6, while Arāja’s goal seven minutes later already put Latvia in the lead (10: 9).
Vershakov passed the three-goal lead at the beginning of the last minute, but Emīls Kurzemnieks intercepted the ball half a minute before the end of the half, reaching 13: 9.
The Belarusians managed to start the second half more successfully. After about five minutes of play, the home team approached 13:15, but the Latvian national team earned two consecutive rejections in a short period of time. However, the Belarusians did not use this opportunity to balance the result and also take the lead.
The draw was reached by the Belarusians after ten and a half minutes, when Nilas Aivis Miķelsons lost the ball, which paid off with a lost goal in the second half. In the 43rd minute of the game, the Belarusians returned to the lead with 19:18 after another mistake of their opponents. In the middle of the half, Vyacheslav Bokan scored a goal and already took the lead by 22:19.
The last goal of the Latvian national team was scored by Kristopāns half a minute before the end of the regular time, who noticed that the Belarusian goal was empty and sent the ball across the field.
Before this game, Latvia did not draw or, in case of victory, provided that the Italian handball players did not win Norway, still had hopes of entering the final tournament of the European Championship. However, this possibility was minimal, as the third place in the group takes into account the results of the third place in all other qualification groups. Accordingly, only the top four teams that have won third place in any of the eight groups will advance to the European Championship finals.
In the second game of this group, Norway defeated Italy with 37:16 (23: 9).-
In the sixth subgroup of the qualifying tournament, Norway and Belarus scored ten points in five games, which also qualified for the final tournament. Italy and Latvia scored two points.
Earlier this week, Latvians lost to Norway in Valmiera at 23:28 and 17:36.
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