Doha: Igor Karacic top scored to help Croatia to a 28-21 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina and also win the duel with brother Igor Karacic.
The Balkan derby didn’t mean anything for both teams as the Croats were confirmed group winners and the Bosnians were already out prior to the throw-off.
The game was advertised as a duel of the Karacic brothers as Igor plays for Croatia and the other Ivan opted to play for the Bosnian team.
Both brothers wear shirt number 18.
However both teams started the game pretty aggressively but the Croats took a confident lead with despite resting some of their top players.
The Bosnians were quite enthusiastic in this game that bore no significance to them, yet the Croats were beating them without any visible extra efforts. At some point the tempo of the game dropped significantly and the Croats were using their superiority with a relaxed confidence.
There were only two Bosnian players on the score sheet at the end of the first half – Toromanovic and Peric. So much for the Bosnian scoring variety. At times it looked as if the Bosnians didn’t know what to do with the ball.
The Croats comfortably won the first half with a 9-goal-difference.
The Bosnians started the second half with a surge of attacking activity trying to reduce the overall deficit. It wasn’t working for them though. Truth to be told the Croats were not successful in scoring for the first 4 minutes of the second half either.
Bosnia’s Ovcina received a straight red card after 40 minutes and was sent off. Clearly it didn’t help Bosnians at this point.
In the meantime Croatia rested even more players but carried on scoring, keeping the goal difference closer to double figures.
The final score of 28:21 results in the Bosnians continuing the tournament in the President’s Cup and group winners Croatia meeting Brazil in the pre-quarter-finals.
Macedonia claimed second place in Group B, behind Croatia, after a 36-31 win over Austria which will pit them against Slovenia in the knockout stage.
The Peninsula
