By
 

Eniola Olatunji 

Cape Verde on Saturday afternoon before 600 fans at the stands shocked Algerian Foxes to win the 27th African Handball Bronze Medals 29-23 goals in a pulsating match that saw half time scores at 16 goals each side.

Cape Verde came with determination to upset the North Africans especially Algeria that has won the title 7 times. So the team employed every tactics in the books to give Algeria a smashing handball court electrocution and they did it wonderfully.

Cape Verde Head Coach, Da Rocha Tiago was yellow carded in the process while three of his players, Araujo Edmilson, Joao Furtado and Paulo Morene got the 2 minutes suspension tow times each escaping the red card.

Edmilson Garcia scored 6 goals; Bruno Landin scored 5 while Jaoa Furtado and Alexandre Pereiro scored 4 goals each.

Algerian player, Abdeldjani Zennadi was red carded on the 3rd of 2 minutes suspension as he attempted to raise the banner for Algeria; two of his colleagues Hichem Daoud and Abdarraouf Bouakaz got 2 minutes suspensions each while Rabbah Meddah was only suspended once.

Ahmed Mahdi still managed to get 6 goals and Ayyoub Abdi got 5 goals.

Although both teams have met once before which Algeria won on 20th January 2020 both teams scaled six hurdles each to qualify for the battle for Bronze.

Algeria started losing to Nigeria 23-25; banged Rwanda 46-25; seized Zambia 37-21; bowed to Egypt 28-42; hanged Angola 27-22 and slumped to Tunisia 24-37.

Cape Verde beat Congo34-28; slayed Morocco 33-28; caged Benin 32-24; gunned down Guinea 45-25; bowed to Tunisia 25-27 and also got rammed by Egypt 26-32.

Nigeria missed the 5th placing match on Friday maintaining a jinx of not going beyond 24 goals as Angola beat her 27-24 to miss a slot at the world cup in Germany next January. 

Results have been pouring in from Kigali in Rwanda for ranking placements of the 27th edition of the tournament. We will start from the bottom where Kenya beat Uganda 38-29 goals to be the 15th team out of 16. Benin outscored Zambia 42-25 to be 13th in Africa; Congo hammered hosts Rwanda 30-20to place 11th.

Gabon narrowly defeated Cameroon 29-27 to place 9th; the match between Morocco and Guinea was very tough becoming the first to be decided by penalty shootouts after it ended 33-33 that Morocco finally won 38-37 to place 7th.  

Egypt, the defending champions of the tournament that has won the title for a good 9 times after Tunisia that has won the title a record 10 times is on course to equal the Tunisian record of 10 wins as she thrashed Cape Verde 32-26 goals with half time scores at 16-11 in favor of Egypt in the first semifinal.

Three countries have significantly dominated Men’s Handball in Africa. Tunisia had won 25 medals (10 Gold, 8 Silver and 7 Bronze); Egypt has 21 medals (9 Gold, 6 Silver and 6 Bronze) and Algeria has 20 medals of 7 Gold, 8 Silver and 5 Bronze.

The tournament that started Wednesday 21st January is expected to draw her curtain on 31st January and this tournament will stand as qualifications for Africa’s representatives at the World Men’s Handball Championship in Germany in 2027. The next Men’s world Handball cup tournament will take place in Germany from 13th to 31st January 2027 with 32 teams on parade, five from each Confederation.