France started its IHFMen’s Youth World Championships campaignwith a win over Croatia in straight sets in a Group B match.

The Croatians gave France a hard time in the first set, but Les Bleus tightened their defence in the second set, allowing Croatia to score only eight points.

Desbonnet and Dubois were amazing, scoring 14 and 10 points respectively.

The sets: 17:19, 8:21

Croatia: Konforta 8, Filipovic, Cvjeticanin 2, Botic, Tomic 6, Fabek 1, Glavendekic 6, Bubalo 2, Jurasovic, Kranjcevic

France: Mas 1, Akakpo 3, Dubois 10, Perchicot 2, Desbonnet 14, Oulieu 2, Saidani 2, Rataboul, Deschamps 6, Petit

Referees: J. Gomer, M. Gomer (Sweden) S: 0-1

Quotes

Vigo Konforta(Croatia – Player)

"This is not what we were expecting, it’s so disappointing. We are in shock. We beat France last year at the European Championships and maybe we thought it would be easy. We couldn't score, our defence was not good and we eventually we lost the game".

RataboulNoe (France – Player)

"We are happy to win this game today, because last year we lost against Croatia. We have to continue in that pace, and beat Brazil and Tongoin