World Cup qualification

ÖHB men celebrate a lackluster victory in Georgia

Austria's handball team celebrated a lackluster victory in Georgia.

(Bild: GEPA pictures)

Austria's handball players go into the second leg of the play-off for the 2025 World Championship with a narrow lead after a 27:25 win in Georgia.

Without shining, Mykola Bilyk and Co. celebrated a 27:25 (12:12) win against Georgia in Tbilisi on Thursday, but failed to turn a 6:0 run after the restart into a clearer success. The two teams will meet again on Sunday (4 p.m.) in the Steffl Arena in Vienna.

"It was a tough piece of work, not what we honestly expected. At least we're going to Vienna with a two-goal lead," said captain Bilyk after the game, in which they missed too many chances. We didn't cover ourselves in glory in attack today. But you have to win games like that first."

Constantin Möstl

(Bild: Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Georgia, who finished 18th in their first appearance at the finals in January, proved at the start that they have nothing to hide and that victories like the one in the European Championship qualifiers in Hungary or over Bosnia-Herzegovina at the European Championship were no mere coincidence. The home side took advantage of Austria's initially mixed performance both offensively and defensively to open up a three-goal lead (7:4 and 8:5) after around a quarter of an hour.

Möstl once again a confident back-up
It was not least the powerful Gummersbach player Giorgi Tskhovrebadze who was difficult to control up to that point, and the equalizer at 9:9 in the 20th minute did not get the red-white-red team rolling as hoped. An overtime spell with the visitors trailing 9:10 went unused and Robert Weber, who had previously failed twice, finally made it 10:10 (25'). The game remained tight until the break, Austria repeatedly missed good opportunities, but could also rely on a very present goalkeeper in Constantin Möstl.

It was a hard piece of work, not what we had honestly imagined

Mykola Bilyk

The period after the restart belonged to Austria. Wing Sebastian Frimmel alone scored four goals in the first five minutes and Georgia were unable to recover from their 18:12 lead, making it 23:17 for the visitors after 48 minutes. However, the home side - supported by a great goalkeeper Zurab Tsintsadze - benefited from the Austrians' lack of consistency and even came as close as one goal to the ÖHB side three minutes before the end. Former champion Janko Bozovic provided a halfway conciliatory finish with a directly converted free throw from an acute angle at the final whistle.