A stunning seventy minutes saw Germany emerge from beyond the handball grave to win 35:34 over France, with Renārs Uščins scoring 14 goals, including four in extra-time, to dump out the hosts from the men’s tournament at Paris 2024.
The form book suggested Germany were the favourites here – group winners against the hosts who scraped through. But the knockout rounds are not about form, they’re about winning, as Spain displayed this morning.
In front of a capacity crowd of 27,000 fans, including IOC President Thomas Bach, the two sides prepared to go into battle. The atmosphere was astonishingly good, the noise and the occasion justifying the move to a bigger arena outside of Paris, undoubtedly doing the sport a massive service in the eyes of the
There was little to choose between the sides until the 10th minute, with France turning the ball over too often but being rescued by Vincent Gerard with five saves from his first 10 shots faced.
Although Germany’s defence was coming out hard, they struggled to keep the line players under wraps with Tournat and Fabregas combining for five early goals. This forced Germany to alter their approach and thus leave room for Dika Mem to hurt them from long range. A hapless start for Andreas Wolff (0 from 9) saw him hooked off after 13 minutes and Germany realised they were in for a long afternoon.
It took 17 minutes for Germany to register their first save and David Späth made it a double. That inspired a mini-revival as they made life a bit more difficult for their hosts as Späth enjoyed a 50% save rate to keep the deficit down to three, 17:14 at half-time.
Super Vincent
A quickfire start to the second half gave France a six-goal lead and would usually signal the end for most challengers, but not Germany.
The young back court stayed calm and worked their way back into the contest, helped massively by Späth between the posts. Now the pressure was beginning to tell on France for the first time, who needed a hat-trick of saves from Gerard to prevent Germany from taking the lead with 10 minutes left to play.
Germany did eventually snatch that lead after a turnover but it didn’t last long as an otherworldly Vincent Gerard hit new heights making three penalty saves on the trot.
The game was descending into a scrap and was begging for one side to shift things tactically but both coaches stuck to their guns and it appeared individual brilliance would prevail in this battle of attrition.
That individual brilliant came from Dika Mem, scoring France’s final three goals from open play and 10 in total, and Vincent Gerard with a mind-boggling 24 saves, sending France to the verge of the semi-finals.
But then…
France take an unnecessary timeout with 6 seconds left and Dika Mem has a rush of blood to the head. He tries to float a ball over a four-man German wall at halfway but Julian Köster gets his paws on it and plays the ball to Renārs Uščins, who slides it between Gerard’s legs before the buzzer and we’re into extra time.
The first half of extra time belonged to Uščins and Hugo Descat, scoring three a piece, and we remained level.
Tension grew and every attack delved into a complete dogfight. France looked to do just enough to force another period of extra time but left a little window of opportunity for Uščins to find the back of the French net for the 14th time and stun the majority of this crowd into silence.
An unforgettable game, one fitting the end of Nikola Karabatic’s career, which sees Germany progress to Friday’s semi-final against Spain.