Iran to ponder Guijosa’s future after below-par Asian handball meet
The future of Spanish head coach Rafael Guijosa Castillo is in doubt following Iran’s disappointing campaign at the Asian Men’s Handball Championship in Kuwait.
An injury-hit squad forced Iran to withdraw from its final classification match against Jordan on Tuesday and settle for a 12th-place finish among 15 teams.
While “not satisfied by the team’s performance,” Alireza Pakdel, the president of the Iranian Handball Federation, said the governing body’s Technical Committee will have the final say on whether to continue with the Spaniard. Guijosa was appointed to the job for a second spell last September, having guided Iran to a historic bronze at the 2014 Asian Championship in his previous stint.
“The Technical Committee will make a full assessment of Iran’s results at the Asian Championship, before making the final decision on Guijosa’s future, though significant changes regarding the coaching staff look unavoidable,” Pakdel said on Tuesday.
Iran opened the tournament with a 24-22 loss to four-time bronze medalist Saudi Arabia in Group D of the preliminary round but rebounded to thrash Australia 39-13 in its second outing in the 22nd edition of the event.
A draw against Japan in its final preliminary game would have been enough for Iran to secure a main-round spot. However, Guijosa’s men relinquished a five-goal lead in the second half, with Daisuke Tanaka’s winner at the death sealing a 30-29 victory for the two-time champion, sending Iran into the classification round for 9th-15th places (the Martyr Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah Cup).
Iran hammered India (39-16) and Australia (37-17) in Group IV, but, playing without injured star players Pouya Norouzinejad, Mohammadreza Oraei, Yassin Kabirian, Vahid Masoudi, and Saber Heidari, suffered a 33-23 loss to China on Sunday to finish runner-up in the classification group table.
“We were in the so-called ‘group of death’, according to handball experts in the competition,” Pakdel said, adding: “Saudi Arabia boasted its strongest squad of recent years, which had won the silver at the Islamic Solidarity Games [last November]. Japan, on the other hand, had made it to the final in the previous edition and was the only Asian side at the 2024 Paris Olympics. We have not been in such a difficult group in any of the past several editions.”
“We were unlucky to miss our star player and skipper Alireza Mousavi for the Saudi game due to late arrival of the team and a delay in submitting the 16-player list.
“It was a major shock and disrupted the technical staff’s plans and strategies.
“After bouncing back against Australia, we faced Japan in a decisive match where we perhaps witnessed one of the best performances by the Iranian national team in recent years. I am glad that expectations for Iranian handball have risen so high that we were hopeful of beating Japan. Despite 56 minutes of brilliant play by the national team and the lead we had built over Japan, we threw it all away in the final four minutes. Therefore, the technical committee will thoroughly review the situation that led to the late collapse,” added the IRIHF chief.