The national team rosters for the 2021 Handball World Championship have been gradually announced since the beginning of the week. A very good piece of news concerns center back Manuel Crivelli, who has just been selected for the second consecutive world championship of his career, representing Argentina.
The first confrontations
Number 7 and playmaker for the Nice team will have the opportunity to take to the courts of the Egyptian halls from January 13 to February 1 (in case of a final). For the preliminary round, the Albiceleste is in Group D along with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bahrain, and Denmark, the reigning world champion of 2019. The competition’s opening is largely within reach for the South Americans, who can logically secure second place. In the prospect of advancing to the preliminary round, the center back would join three teams from Group C, including Angola, Japan, Croatia, and Qatar.
His first world championship in 2019
Nearly two years ago, the player from Nice performed well with Argentina. The Albiceleste finished 17th, one place better than in 2017, but narrowly missed advancing past the first round. Unfortunately for Crivelli and his team, they suffered two narrow defeats, which prevented them from progressing further in the World Championship. In the ranking matches, Manuel and his teammates secured two significant victories against Austria (24-22) and Serbia (30-28). Deprived of their playmaker Diego Simonet, the player from Nice scored 17 goals in the 7 matches he played.
The goals for the world championship
It is clear that the Albiceleste aims to do better than the previous two editions (16th in 2017 and 17th in 2019) and even considers a spot in the quarter-finals. To achieve this, they will have to overcome two favorites for the semi-finals, or even the supreme title, Croatia and Denmark, who will be unstoppable. However, one victory against either of these two teams (while securing the other matches, of course) would be enough to glimpse a top 8 finish. Let’s recall that the best performance of the past decade for Argentina was in 2011 in Sweden, where they achieved a 12th place finish.
We wish Manuel Crivelli good luck and a great 2021 World Championship.
