Quarterfinals The meaningless nine seconds that saved Spain: "It was the craziest game of my life"
Coach The secrets of the silent Jordi Ribera: "When he came to the national team we had to decipher him"
More was impossible.
In the stands of the Ergo Arena in Gdansk there were only a dozen Spaniards this Friday, all of them noisy, but in a very exaggerated minority: how can we ask for more from this team?
Handball in Spain is too small to have such a large team.
He stayed in the World Cup semifinals this time and it was a lot.
One more year, Spain returned to the clouds and fell from them against a historic Denmark (23-26), on the way to its third title in a row, a team of those that remain forever.
The Sweden of
Magnus Wislander
, the Croatia of
Ivano Balic
, the France of
Nikola Karabatic
, this Denmark of
Mikkel Hansen
and
Niklas Landin
.
For the team, which beat this dream Danish team ten years ago in the World Cup final and on other occasions, such as last year's European Championship, defeat was to be expected.
As a national team coach admitted just before the match, his legs were still stiff from the effort in the quarterfinals against Norway and only the adrenaline of another close outcome could free them.
It was about to happen, almost, only a couple of details failed.
The plan didn't work out by a hair.
Spain's script was that: chase Denmark to the end, surround her, even hold her and then put all the pressure on her to be her favourite, the reigning champion.
But the Scandinavian team escaped on the brink of the abyss.
With only one minute to go (23-25), the team led by Jordi Ribera had revived 20 times, unable to give up and pushing their rival towards the unpredictable.
An extension?
Two extensions?
Anything was possible then.
In other circumstances, in fact, anything could have happened, but forces were too stretched to achieve the impossible.
A stop by Landin for a penalty, of course, ended Spain's eternal fight.
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Articles Javier Sanchez