Luanda - Angola lost Saturday to Brazil, 19-30, in the last game of the group stage (B) of the senior women's handball tournament, failing to reach the quarter-finals at the Olympic Games in Paris, France.
At half-time, Angola was already losing 6-14, in an atypical game in which the national team spent 20 minutes without scoring a goal.
The African champions are now waiting for the second phase of the competition to find out whether they will face South Korea or Slovenia.
A victory would place the National Team in 10th place in the final classification, the same achieved in the Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) edition in 2016.
The draw with Hungary (31-31) was decisive in the calculations, and today's clash, against the Brazilians, was played under the pressure of qualification and anxiety didn't help.
It is not common for the national team to score just six goals in 30 minutes, just as it is unusual for the offensive sector to allow the opposing goalkeeper to save so many shots.
In the first part of the challenge, Angola shot 18 times in privileged situations to score and the Brazilian goalkeeper saved 12.
Anxious throughout the game, permissive in defense and wasteful in attack, the Angolans today enjoyed a disastrous performance, and the situation worsened with the departure of the experienced Albertina Kassoma, in the second half, due to injury.
In fact, losing by an 11-goal difference (19-30) was a lesser evil, because, given how much Angola conceded and Brazil produced, the defeat could well have been due to a greater goal difference. MC/DOJ
