City of October 6 (Egypt) (AFP)

It was tough, but the Blues are on their way to the quarterfinals: the French men's handball team beat Andy Schmid's Switzerland 25-24 on Monday in the suburbs of Cairo, and will start the main round with the maximum number of points .

They were hot!

After a missed duel by Melvyn Richardson, the Swiss had the ball of the equalizer but Vincent Gérard released the parade he needed against Mehdi Ben Romdhane.

Place now in Portugal, and probably Iceland and Algeria.

This is the rest of the program for the second week in Egypt of the Blues, who may have to do without their goalkeeper Wesley Pardin, affected in contact with Swiss winger Cedric Tynowski.

A withdrawal from the Aix doorman would be a blow to the selection of Guillaume Gille, as Pardin reigned over the opening shock against Norway (28-24) with his 18 saves.

But with Vincent Gérard and Yann Genty, the two goalkeepers of Paris SG, the Blues have resources in the cages.

And also had some in the head, to overcome the Swiss master Andy Schmid, already author of 7 goals (78% of success) in the first period.

For his first World Cup at 37, the leader of the Rhein-Neckar Löwen lived up to his reputation by keeping the Helvetians at height throughout the match (10 goals in total).

- end of the game with a knife -

The trap was to focus only on the center-half, the Blues had warned.

Deploying as expected a game with 7 field players, the Swiss also found the loophole through pivot Alen Milosevic (4 goals) and left-back Roman Sidorowicz (5 goals).

Often by shots to the hip against which neither Pardin nor Gérard had a solution.

Despite the efficiency of Kentin Mahé (7 goals on 9 shots), the French have never managed to take off.

Worse, Switzerland made a mini-break after a failed combination of Nedim Remili and against Schmid, author of 5 goals in the first 14 minutes (5-8).

After a quarter of an hour, Pardin made his first stop on left winger Marvin Lier and France went 6-1 to regain the advantage (11-9).

The injury of the Martinique, after a failed counter from Ludovic Fabregas, put an end to this dynamic.

After a moment of hesitation, the Blues found the thread on a powerful shot from Mem but Switzerland never let go, equalizing before the break by Sidorowicz (14-14).

The advantage of the Blues in the second half remained slim (19-17), the fault of a few approximations like this missed shot by Michaël Guigou in the empty cage.

And Switzerland took the advantage less than 10 minutes from time on a goal from Nicolas Raemy, served, of course, by Schmid (23-22).

At the end of the game with a knife, Luc Abalo gave France an advantage despite the exclusions of Romain Lagarde then Dika Mem (25-23).

But the Blues almost suffered the same fate as Tunisia the day before, who saw their two-goal lead melt against Brazil in the dying seconds, before finally winning.

© 2021 AFP