By the hair and in an agonizing way, Spain will be in the 2025 Handball World Cup in Croatia, Denmark and Norway. They qualified for the next world championship thanks to an in-extremis save by Gonzalo Pérez de Vargas on a shot by Milos Kos in the last second of the match against Serbia in Novi Sad (25-22).
In the first leg of the qualifying round, played in Lalín, Spain had won by four goals (32-28).
The Spanish team led by Jordi Ribera was on the verge of being left out of the 2025 World Cup during several phases of the match. The 4 goals from the first leg were quickly wiped out by the Serbians, who dominated 5-1 after 10 minutes. At halftime they led 15-11.
In the second half, Ribera’s changes did not improve the situation much and Spain was always in tow. And with water up to their necks: at 14 minutes the Hispanics were 6 goals down (20-14, 21-15), and with 5 minutes remaining they had the tie tied with Orbovic’s 23-19.
In those last five minutes Gede Guardiola (23-20), Ferran Solé (23-21) and Daniel Dujshebaev (24-22) appeared to close the gap and give Spain more options at the decisive moment.
The former Blaugrana Nemanja Ilic made it 25-22 with a penalty with 1m30s left, Spain failed in its attack, Dani Fernández, with 30 seconds left, and in the next play, the last, Milos Kos’s shot almost over the horn was stopped by the Blaugrana Pérez de Vargas.
His save avoided the sudden death of penalties, and saved Spain from being left out of a World Cup for the first time in 55 years (the last one they missed was France 1970). Since the GDR 1974, the Spanish team has been in all the world championships: it has won 2 golds (2005 and 2013) and three bronzes (2011, 2021, 2023).
