Germany Moves On

Hosts Germany bounced back from defeat to Poland earlier this week by beating Slovenia 35-29, while group rivals Iceland continued their form with a 36-30 win over African champions Tunisia.

There was a definite home-crowd advantage in the Halle/Westfallen stadium for the German team as the spectators' deafening chants of "Deutschland, Deutschland," surprised even the hosts.

"I've never experience this kind of atmosphere before," German captain Markus Baur said after the match.

An exhausting win

After a depressing loss to Poland, it was Pascal Hens who once again gave the home crowd something to cheer about, hammering home two early goals and setting the match's pace.

"We wanted to show what we can do," said Hens, who finished with nine goals.

While German coach Heiner Brand said his team is now performing as he had hoped, they still have a difficult time ahead of them on Thursday.

"The team showed its absolute determination to win," he said. "But I expect a difficult game (against Tunisia) because this has cost us a lot of energy."

Slovenia blames refs

Slovenia coach Kasim Kamenica blamed poor refereeing by Danish referees Per Olesen and Lars Ejby Pedersen for his side's defeat.

"The game is a disgrace for the world federation IHF and German handball," he said. "The performance of the referees was not fair towards the players and the spectators."

Convinced his team never had a fair chance, Kamenica said he would "stop training immediately" if fewer than five German goals resulted from foot faults.

"We did not play under regular conditions," he added. "It was clear to my team from the start we weren't going to get anything here."

Spain stay on form

Spain overcame four-time Olympic champions Russia 33-29 and claimed the top spot in the second group while fancied Croatia posted a nail-biting 28-26 victory over Denmark on the first day of the main group round.

Juan Garcia scored 10 goals and Alberto Entrerrios eight for Spain while Russia's best marksmen were Konstantin Igropulo with six and Michael Shipurin on five.

Spain are equal on points with Olympic champions Croatia and Hungary who also chalked up their fourth straight victory by edging the Czech Republic 28-25, with Gergo Ivancsik notching seven.

Croatia meanwhile had to battle all the way before overcoming Denmark in a tight 28-26 result that could have gone either way. Ivano Balic was the difference between the two teams with nine goals.

Quarter-final spots still undecided

With the first four teams advancing to the quarter-finals from the two main round groups of six, both groups were still open.

Tunisia enjoyed a 12-7 lead after 15 minutes and went into half-time ahead 19-16. But the only remaining African team left in the tournament made a run of mistakes after the break against the aggressive Icelanders.

"We did not have the concentration and the stamina for 60 minutes today," Tunisia coach Sead Hasanefendic said. "I think we can get a good result against Germany, but we have to be more clever."