Losing against France can be fun: the strange path of Spain in the World Cup

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Weird, very strange, very strange, very strange, but fun after all.

In any sport Spain and France bite each other in every match.

Without going far back, and without rekindling nightmares, they will remember

hitting his chest in 2015 and

heading his head in 2012. But in handball that rivalry is exaggerated.

Because the two countries are very equal and because they run into each other year in and year out, the confrontation is exaggerated, it jumps from generation to generation and never cools down.

That is why what happened yesterday was strange, very strange, very strange, very strange.

And so it was also fun.

Spain and France met in a supposedly decisive match, the last of the group stage, with everything at stake a priori and they simply had a good time.

Before the break,

, the Spanish defender, laughed and hugged

, the French goalkeeper, for a goal that he could not have scored.

Where has it been seen?

Actually, both teams were classified and the group leadership was useless so the match was just a pastime.

And as such each one enjoyed it in their own way.

France won, yes, but as if Spain had won.

The Spanish coach, Jordi Ribera, a methodical type, especially exhaustive with his team's breaks, dedicated the match to balancing efforts, offering minutes to the less usual players and the French coach,

, more or less maintained his rotation so that leaders like

or

continue with the inertia.

They both got it right.

It was easy.

The game was a very high-level training session, a lot of attack, little defense, and happy faces on all sides.

On the Spanish side, three players ended up especially happy.

The winger

, who had not been called up in recent games and yesterday left three very hard shots: three goals.

The young winger

who flew again as he did in the opening game against Montenegro: seven goals.

And the pivot

who had only played half an hour in the entire championship and against France doubled that figure: four goals.

They were the highlights.

With them, in fact, Spain suffered a bump in the first half (6-9), a partial against that was about to end the kindness of the match, but also with them the team remade itself.

In the second half, from the locker room exit, he was ahead and came to enjoy an opportunity to launch himself towards victory (19-16) that he did not take advantage of.

Then, with the tie, the last 10 minutes (23-23) were faced as a real match, they defended themselves more, they fought more, although it wasn't a harsh battle either.

To which France created its advantage, it's over.

Of course,

took advantage of the last minute to hit

and remember that moderation is not among his attributes.

Despite the defeat, Spain will also be in the quarterfinals on Wednesday and, just as would have happened in the event of victory, they will not know their rival until Monday.

The winner of the duel between Germany and Norway (8:30 p.m., TDP) will take the lead.

It was strange, very strange, very strange, very strange, but after all, losing to France was fun.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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