The Blues continue their flawless performance in the World Championship with a 4th success in as many matches played.
After Poland, Saudi Arabia and Slovenia, it is the turn of Montenegro (35-24) this Wednesday to undergo the law of the France team, very solid if not really inspired in attack.
Next Friday, against Iran, Nikola Karabatic and others should definitely validate their ticket for the quarter-finals, even before challenging Spain on Sunday.
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The complete schedule and results of the Handball World Cup
The 2023 Handball World Cup rankings
The first act was thus quite symptomatic of the match experienced by the France team, undeniably superior but which seemed to lack pep, speed in their game, precision in shooting... So many shortcomings of a day that Montenegro could not to exploit to pose real problems for the men of Guillaume Gille, with the exception of Milos Bozovic, the left back of Ivry.
Fortunately, the waste in attack was perfectly compensated by a Vincent Gérard in verve in his goal and who offered himself the luxury of repelling the first two jets from seven opposing meters.
So that after eight balanced minutes (5-4), the reigning Olympic champions suddenly accelerated to widen a nice gap (10-5, 20th).
10 goals for Richardson
Which, alas, did not fully hold until the break since Montenegro, despite the good entry into play from Melvyn Richardson, managed to reduce the gap to three units when joining the locker room (16-13).
Nevertheless, there was no fire in the blue-white-red house.
This was confirmed by the start of the second period.
Vincent Gérard continued to disgust the Montenegrins, and the Blues were quick to recreate a significant gap (23-16, 41st).
From then on, Guillaume Gille could start to make a beneficial turnover for the rest of the competition, leaving Richardson to continue his personal festival (10 goals in total) against a resigned Montenegrin formation.
And finally beaten by eleven lengths (35-24).