Saudi Arabia vs Slovenia Prediction & Betting Tips - Handball World Championship

Prediction published on 10/01/2023, 14:53  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 12/01/2023 at 04:00 in Handball World Championship Prediction

Slovenia begin their 2023 Men's World Handball Championships campaign with a game against Saudi Arabia. This is a Group B match in the preliminary round with the other two countries being France and the co-hosts Poland. Slovenia reached the main round in the 2021 tournament and their best ever performance was in 2013 and 2017 when getting to the last four. They received a wild card to take part in these championships. They've had two warm-up games this month with a win and loss to Hungary. Three of their last four internationals have been won after two European Championships qualifying wins last October. 

Saudi Arabia qualified after finishing in the top five of the Asian Championships. This is their first appearance in the Men's World Handball Championships since 2019. Their last five tournaments have seen them fail to make it into the main round and transferred into the President's Cup. The top three in this group go into the Main Round, so the Saudi's will hope to finish in those positions and avoid another time in the President's Cup that determines the lower placings. They've also played two warm-up games this month and you can't say they avoid playing the top teams. They took on defending world champions Denmark twice and lost both by an aggregate points margin of 41 goals. That included a horror of a first half in the first game in which they conceded 25 goals. Before those games, they'd lost two of their last three matches, both to Bahrain. This is the easiest of their three group games but a win for their opponents looks more than likely.