The albiceleste team led by Fernando Capurro closed its participation in the 8th Men’s Youth World Cup that took place in Macedonia with a defeat against the local team 26-29. Despite the final setback, Argentina closed a positive participation that places it among the best in the history of the under-19 category.
In the first half, they went to halftime losing 8-15, in the final 15 minutes they managed to recover but it was not enough to turn the score around and avoid the fall. Tomás Fillol, with 5 goals, was the top scorer for a team that said goodbye to the World Cup in 14th place.
In Macedonia, Argentina closed its participation with 3 wins and 4 losses. They beat Macedonia 23-20 in their Group C debut, fell to Denmark 19-29 and Japan 26-29, then beat Bahrain 25-24 and Nigeria 30-22; These results allowed him to equal his second best performance in the preliminary stage of the Junior and Youth World Championships in both genders.
After qualifying for the round of 16 as third in their group, they lost to Germany 25-33 and to Macedonia 26-29 for the definition of 13th/14th place.
With 14th place, the Argentine team achieved one of its best performances in World Cup events in the youth category. It improved the final position of the last three world championships, being the best since the world championships are played with 24 teams, and achieved qualification for the second phase of the tournament for the second time in its history. The first had been in Bahrain 2007 where Argentina was fourth with players like Diego Simonet, Federico Fernández, Leonel Maciel and Pablo Vainstein; gold medalists in the last Pan American Games in Lima 2019.
Photo: IHF & WCH2019/ Filip Viranovski
