IHF | Barcelona dominate Al-Ahly, but both teams go into semi-finals ...

FC Barcelona secured their second win in as many matches at the 2024 IHF Men’s Club World Championship, 31:23, against hosts Al-Ahly, with both teams progressing to the semi-finals, Barcelona as the group winners, while Al-Ahly as the best second-placed team in the preliminary round.

GROUP B
Al-Ahly (EGY) vs FC Barcelona (ESP) 23:31 (10:17)

Ambitions were high for Al-Ahly before the 2024 IHF Men’s Club World Championship, which saw the comeptition returning to Egypt for the first time after 17 years, especially after they clinched a 34-goal win against Sydney Uni in their first match. After Barcelona also beat the Australian side by 30 goals, it meant that Al-Ahly were primed to secure a place in the semi-finals, but they also wanted to make a statement of intent against the European champions.

However, Barcelona are no pushovers and even if they did not win by as many goals against Sydney Uni, they still had a fantastic depth, more experience and also had won the previous two matches against Al-Ahly at the IHF Men’s Club World Championship, which meant they had the upper hand.

With four saves and a 57% saving efficiency in the first 10 minutes, goalkeeper Emil Nielsen ensured that Barcelona enjoyed a great start of the match, helping his side take a 6:3 lead after a third of the first half, as Barca’s attack was clearly in good shape, after yesterday’s 53:23 win against Sydney Uni, the largest number of goals scored in a single match by the Spanish giants in their whole history.

It went from bad to worse for Al-Ahly, as Barcelona put together a 5:1 run, spurred by four goals from their wings, two which came from Aleix Gomez, to open a 10:4 lead, as Al-Ahly turned the ball over too many times, due to the pressure exerted by the Barcelona defence.

From that moment on, Barcelona carefully managed the gap, which went to seven goals at the end of the first half, with Nielsen still dominating between the posts, where he finished with a 41% saving efficiency in the first part of the match, while Gomez scored five goals and captain Dika Mem added three more, to lift Barcelona to a 17:10 lead.

Al-Ahly’s chances of a win were up in flames by that moment and now, the only thing the Egyptian champions could do was to limit the damage, as they still needed to lose by a maximum of 18 goals to progress to the semi-finals as the best second-placed team in the preliminary round, with Khaleej Club being the ones which were waiting, with two points and a +16 goal difference.

Barcelona continued to press and even opened a nine-goal lead, 22:13, in the second half, as Gomez and Mem continued to score, also helped by line player Luis Frade, with the Spanish side creating more and more chances via their fast combinations, yet Al-Ahly knew what they needed to do to stay close.

Still, the Egyptian side managed to keep the gap under control until the end, limiting the damage enough to concede a 23:31 loss, as Barcelona hit the 30-goal mark for the seventh time in seven matches in all competitions this season, in yet another dominating performance. Gomez and Al-Ahly's line player Ahmed Adel were the top scorers of the match, with six goals each.

After the preliminary round of the 2024 IHF Men’s Club World Championship was concluded with this match, all three European sides – Veszprem HC, FC Barcelona and SC Magdeburg – won their groups and secured their semi-finals berth.

The best second-placed side was Al-Ahly, as the Egyptian side, Khaleej Club and Zamalek SC all finished on two points. The goal difference decided the team progressing to the semi-finals, which was Al-Ahly.

In the two semi-finals, Barcelona will face Veszprem HC, while Magdeburg meet Al-Ahly, with the matches scheduled for Tuesday, 1 October, at 17:00 and 20:00 EEST.

Player of the Match: Dika Mem (FC Barcelona)