France – Qatar (32-28)
Ivry – Ukraine (27-25)
Spain – Norway (39-25)

An uninspired French side held off a pesky Qatari team that never let the game get out of hand. Although the outcome was never in real doubt, the 4 goal margin of victory is clearly a morale victory for a Qatari team which lost 4 games by much larger margins in a recent International tournament in Italy against far weaker teams. France rested many of their top players, but still had an overwhelming advantage in terms of talent.

Ukraine, arguably the weakest European side to make the World Championships had an embarrassing loss to Ivry, the French club team that is hosting the tournament. While Ivry is one of the top clubs in France, they are missing two of their best players, Luc Abalo, who’s playing with the French National Team and Ragnar Oskarrson, who is training with the Iceland National Team.

Spain walloped Norway, 39-25, in another tune-up match. Spanish News Write-up: http://es.sports.yahoo.com/04012007/2/balonmano-amistoso-cronica-espana-noruega-39-25.html

We’ll continue to post the results of all the matches in our links page on the right hand side of the screen. If you are aware of any matches not listed, feel free to drop us a line at editors@teamhandballnes.com