So is anyone watching the handball world cup?

[ZFR]

Poland beat Iceland 35-33 yesterday. Great match... which is more than can be said about behavior of Icelandic players after it (coach refusing to shake hands)...

Anyway, Poland's doing great, beat host Germany in first round. Only lost one match to France...

Of the other IW nationalities...

Croatia is doing best. Only team with no loss so far.
Hungary just one loss to Croatia and Iceland with just one loss to Poland, and Germany only lost to Poland too... (In the end in won't matter much, they're all going in quarterfinals anyway).
Australia lost to France, Ukraine and Iceland 10-47, 18-37 and 20-45. An now after that they even lost to Greenland (I didn't even know anyone lived in Greenland... let alone they had a sports team of any type).

Next matches on 27th. Results here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Wo...l_Championship

[ 02-05-2007, 06:48 AM: Message edited by: ZFR ]

[Leonis]

Originally posted by ZFR: ...Australia lost to France, Ukraine and Iceland 10-47, 18-37 and 20-45. An now after that they even lost to Greenland (I didn't even know anyone lived in Greenland...)...

Huh? Well I'll be! We have a handball team? Maybe we should lend them to the English Cricket team? Everyone's a winner in that scenario!

Looks like Poland's doing well! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[ 01-26-2007, 06:19 AM: Message edited by: Leonis ]

[ZFR]

(sseing how everyone must be eagerly awaiting the results, judging by the tons of posts this thread received)

The World Cup ended yesterday. Poland came second after losing to Germany in finals. We did beat them in the first round though.

Still, it is the best result ever for the Polish team in handball world cups. And we can say we are the only team who have beaten the champions in this tournament.

Top 8 teams:

1 Germany
2 Poland
3 Denmark
4 France
5 Croatia
6 Russia
7 Spain
8 Iceland

[PurpleXVI]

I'm just surprised Greenland has it's own national team, seeing as how they're technically part of Denmark.

[Bozos of Bones]

This Handball World Cup is a farse.

[ZFR]

Originally posted by Bozos of Bones: This Handball World Cup is a farse.

In what sense?

[Bozos of Bones]

Look at the top 8 teams.
Now look at their game records in the cup. The game system is one of the stupider I've seen.
How many games have you watched? I can think of atleast three games that were decided purely by the biased judges. BTW, did you know that there were no Croatian judges? Kinda surprising, a judge team that has been voted best in Athens and Portugal, 2nd(or 3rd, can't remember) in Tunis doesn't even get an invite...
Oh and yeah, the host is once again the winner. I've got nothing against Germany, but the host winning a cup is beginning to be a tradition in Handball.

[ZFR]

I've watched most of the games (excluding the 16-24 placement ones).
The one in which there was the biggest judge bias was the France-Germany semifinal. There was some judge bias in some other matches (which ones did you have in mind btw?) but nothing too great compared to other sports/events.

Whats wrong with the system? First round groups, second round groups then quarter-finals...
OK, it was a little changed this year. Before top team from each group would skip quarterfinal and go directly into semis. This way Poland and Croatia would've been in semis straight away... But it's just a small change and it makes the system more similar to that of football world cup.
It's like that in football too. A team can have a draw and a draw and a win (France in 2006) or even loss draw and win (Italy in 1994) in first round, and still qualify to second round and reaches the final. While another have 3 straight wins in first round, and immediately lose 1 match in second round. First case team has reached final and has 1-2 place. Second team might have better record (75% wins) but has only 9-16 place.
Which part exactly makes you call the handball world cup system stupid?

Originally posted by Bozos of Bones: Oh and yeah, the host is once again the winner. I've got nothing against Germany, but the host winning a cup is beginning to be a tradition in Handball.

Now this is just not true. It is the second time since 1958 and 4th time ever. Not something I would call a tradition.

In fact lets look at last 10 world cups:

1986 - host not in top 4
1990 - host not in top 4
1993 - host 3rd
1995 - host not in top 4
1997 - host not in top 4
1999 - host not in top 4
2001 - host 1st
2003 - host not in top 4
2005 - host 4th
2007 - host 1st

Compare to football

2006 - host 3rd
2002 - host 4th
1998 - host 1st
1994 - host not in top 4
1990 - host 3rd
1986 - host not in top 4
1982 - host not in top 4
1978 - host 1st
1974 - host 1st
1972 - host not in top 4

Seems to me football world cup favors the host much more than handball.

[Bozos of Bones]

ZFR, I'm impressed by your answer!
The three most blatant judge bias games were the mentioned France-Germany, Iceland-Denmark(hey, let's change the score 20 seconds before the end!) and France-Croatia(Croatia has the ball, the French fault, the judges agree and, check this out, give them the ball).
The system is a bit lacking, because it isn't Sport any more if you have to machinate and scheme to win. Our example: Had we lost the game against Spain, we would have avoided the French and been in the 1st-4th place race, and not in the 5th-9th. I'm not saying football's system is any better.
And for that last line, I meant to say "in sports" but somehow managed to write "in handball".

[ZFR]

Originally posted by Bozos of Bones: The system is a bit lacking, because it isn't Sport any more if you have to machinate and scheme to win. Our example: Had we lost the game against Spain, we would have avoided the French and been in the 1st-4th place race, and not in the 5th-9th. I'm not saying football's system is any better.

I can agree with that to some extend.
But the only way to solve it is to have a system where everyone plays against everyone like in a league and that would take way too much time and that is simply not possible in a world cup. The system is as fair as it can get and is practically same in all team sports events: first round(s) groups, then quarter/semi/(1/8th)/(1/16th) finals. It can lead to machinating (better lose to face team X rather than Y, or better draw so we both qualify rather than only one) but in the long run, it's the best teams that win and not the ones who are best at scheming. I can see exceptions happening sometimes like in Croatia's case here where a team's position does not reflect its performance, but overall it's working well. And this scheming to win isn't really so frequent. In 95%+ of games it's "it's better to win".


Had Croatia lost against Spain and came second, then instead of facing France they would've faced Iceland who... won against France. So you never really know.

[ 02-05-2007, 01:28 PM: Message edited by: ZFR ]