The sixth day was semi-finals day with cross pool matches.

The semi-finals for the medal places were the last two games of the day. Both games showed a big gap between the top two countries – The Netherlands and Belgium – and the rest. Belgium beat Portugal 31-11 (h/t 15-6) and The Netherlands beat England 29-10 (h/t 17-5).

In the other matches, Poland against Turkey should be easy for Poles on paper. Poland started better concentrated, keeping Turks on distance and was ahead at half time 9-5. The second half, however, was not as easy as expected, The Poles went down and the Turks felt the chance, but Poland held on winning by just one goal 13-12.

Catalonia vs. Germany was better started by the Germans, but they didn’t continue in that way and at the end of the first half were losing 7-10. In the beginning of the second half Germany was in a better mood and they came back to 11-12 in the 28th minute, but it was end of Germany’s revival as the Catalans recovered and held on for a 17-15 victory, a big disappointment for the Germans.

The other game, between the Czechs and Russia was expected to be fight between the best scorers of tournament – male (Petrukhin) on Russian side and female (Kolářová) on Czech side. The Czechs started well, but Russia was able to equalize at 2-2. Nobody expected, however, that this was all from the Russians. The Czech captain Denisa Kolářová started her shooting performance followed by the whole Czech team. Half time 11-5 and an end of game score of 21-9 clearly confirmed Czech dominance in this match and made home crowd happy.

Friday 11 July 2014 the semi-finals will be played in Olomouc (CZE).

The following matches are in the match schedule based on the pool results:

12.45 TURKEY – POLAND
14.30 CATALONIA – GERMANY
16.15 RUSSIA – CZECH REPUBLIC
18.00 PORTUGAL – BELGIUM
19.45 NETHERLANDS – ENGLAND

The highlight of the day was the third match between the Czech Republic and England and showed whether either team is strong enough to support their thoughts about a medal. The Czechs definitely showed a promising improvement following their earlier matches and England put their dismal performance of the previous day well out of their system. The match was level at half time at 6-6 with both teams feeling their way against each other. However, in the second half the match livened up and showed differing shooting styles – excellent from the English players and weak from Czechs – with the game ending in a 20-14 win for England, keeping them in fight for second place in the group and the Czechs at the bottom of the pool ranking with zero points. Thursday’s showdown between England and Germany will determine who will reach the semi-final.

The fourth day started with the game between Turkey and Catalonia. The Turks started with better concentration and at half time were 5-4 in the lead. However, the Catalans’ experience prevailed in the second half with the match ending 11-7 in their favour, deciding that Turkey will end on the last spot in the tournament ranking. The second match, Russia vs Portugal, continued with the day’s poor shooting so far, but the Portuguese slowly but firmly built up their lead from 6-4 at half time to 16-10 at the end.

The last two games looked like good training exercises for the top two ranked teams because Belgium overcame Poland easily 33-6 (h/t 14-4) and the Netherlands comfortably beat Hungary 37-13 (h/t 18-5).

The second day started with very close and emotional match, Belgium vs England. The English team performed above expectations and spectators in the sports hall saw a really great game. The Belgians seemed to have left their guns in the hotel and needed a kind of luck in winning the match by a narrow margin – 13-12 after a 6-5 half time score.

The second match brought together the teams of Hungary and Turkey. In the first minute of the match there were three goals and the audience was looking forward to a big fire fight. However, the powder keg of goals didn’t explode. However, we got to half time with the score quite close – 8-7 but Hungary turned the score in their favour in the second half wining this stormy game 16-13.

For the Czech audience the most attractive game was the third game in which hosts clashed with rivals from Germany. It took a long time before the first goal was scored by the Czechs but within 10 minutes the Germans built up a three goal lead and held this until half time – 6-9. The Czech players and supporters seemed often surprised with decisions of the referee, so the atmosphere in sport hall became almost explosive. Confrontation between the Czech players and the referee continued in the second half, culminating with yellow cards for Jan Simek and Denisa Kolarova. The Czechs tried hard, keeping within one goal, but in the end failed to overcome the German defence. The match was ended 14-11 for Germany.

For the fourth game of the day we had Catalonia and Russia. The Catalans did not pass well in the first half which led to an increase in goals for the Russian side. Half-time was reached with a score of 7-11 in favour of Russia. In the second half the Catalan coach changed several players, which proved to be a good move, bringing the scores level at 14-14, and at the end of normal time the scores were still level at 19-19. This led to the second match to be decided by a Golden Goal, with the Catalans having lost the day before by this manner. Catalonia scored from first attack and Russian failed to reply in their attack, even getting yellow card for Sergey Glazkov, leaving the final score 20-19 in Catalonia’s favour.

The last match of the day was the Netherlands against Portugal. The Dutch team started quickly and with accurate shots from almost any point on the field took lead, which in the first half increased to 14-6. In the beginning of second half the Dutch coach replaced a whole quartet of players, which brought even faster korfball and more quality shooting opportunities. Portugal also managed to add a few more goals and the match ended with the score 32-13 in favour of the Dutch.