Bahrain down Algeria 42-40

Manama : Bahrain under coach Ebrahim Ali defeated Algeria 42-40 after penalties yesterday in the semi-finals of the 21st - 24th classification placement matches in the 2017 Men’s Youth World Handball Championships at the Tbilisi Sports Palace in the capital of Georgia.

Bahrain finished bottom of Group A with one win against Denmark and four losses to defending champions France, Egypt, Sweden and Norway, but battled hard against the Algerians who finished bottom of Group 2 with the same preliminary round record.

At half-time Bahrain led 24-19, but by full-time it was all-square at 37-37.

In the penalty shoot-out, Bahrain prevailed 5-3.

Starring for Bahrain was Ahmed Fadul with 16 goals, the other scorers were Ahmed Ali (9), Ahmed Al Ghazal (5), Fadhel Al Maqabi (4), Abdulla Ali, Yusuf Al Qasimi (3), Mohammed Mohammed and Abdulla Al Zaimoor (1).

For Algeria its scorers were, Issam Gasmi and Abdel Malek Fodil (9), Abdeldjalil Zenadi (6), Yousef Rahmani (5), Amar Messaoud (4), Sami Beloucif and Yousef El Houti (3) and Riadh Azaz (1).

In the other semi-final, Argentina bottom of Group 3 after losing all five group matches defeated Mexico 32-20 from Group 4 who had an identical record, with the score in favour of Argentina (15-9) at half-time. Top scorer for Argentina was Juan Francisco Ceccardi (6) and for Mexico it was Luis Fernando Ortiz Leon (5).

Today Bahrain play Argentina for 21st place, while Algeria take on Mexico for 23rd place.

Other placement results: 

(Semi-finals): Norway bt Georgia 39-21 (17-12), Serbia bt Brazil 27-26 (13-13).