An hour before the start of the match with Sweden, Montenegrin handball players learned that they are in the quarterfinals of the 26th World Championship.
Maybe that's why they didn't give their best, so they lost 32:25.
"We are overjoyed about reaching the quarterfinals. We found that out before the match, maybe the focus went away because of that. This is a painful defeat, we could and wanted to do better, but we responded poorly to the challenge. There are a lot of things to analyze, and now we turn to the match, which is the most important," said Tatjana Brnović.
The rival in the quarter-finals is another host, Denmark, who defeated Germany 30:28 in a direct confrontation for the 1st place in group 3.
"Denmark, along with Norway, is the best, with many players in top clubs. It will be a big challenge, and we are few. The most important thing is to prepare well and recover well".
During the match, the "lionesses" openly showed that they did not like the referee's criteria.
"I had the feeling that we played most of the match with one less player. We had to adapt to that, but in some moments it was difficult and debatable", said Brnović.
Bonus video:
