Goalie’s fate in hand of God

By PETER CALDER

You have to feel sorry for the goalkeepers. The sight of a dejected goalie picking the ball out of the back of the net is hard to bear.

But at least in soccer it is something approaching an even contest. At times - almost as often as not - the keeper reads it right, and the arc of the diver intersects with the flight of the ball with a mystical precision that would thrill an astronomer. Even hockey goalies, padded like the Michelin man, get to see it coming.

But the goalie in a handball match is faced with an attack from the air. The strikers - six to a side - ceaselessly circle, passing the ball back and forth, watching and waiting for a gap in the defensive wall. Their target is a goal 2m high and 3m wide and they may not enter the wide arc of court around the goalmouth, a yellow zone in which only the goalie may patrol.

But nothing, not even gravity it appears, prevents the striker from flying above the no-go zone.

Bursting from the bustle, he soars, seeming for a moment to hang in mid-air, even - impossibly - to jerk upward while still in mid-flight. At this point he is typically less than two metres from the goalie and the hand with which he's about to throw with all his might is maybe three metres above the goalie's head.

The shot is rarely direct. The ball, slightly smaller than a ten-pin bowling ball, but pliant and bouncy, is fired at the goalkeeper's feet and shoots up into the roof of the net, or is popped up to lob unstoppably over his head.

Against this arsenal, the goalkeeper seems virtually defenceless, though it is amazing how often good luck can keep the ball out. If field-of-play defence doesn't disrupt the attacker's composure and force the shot wide, the goalie might get in the way.

Bracing for the shot, flinching like a child tensing for a smack, he juts an arm or swings a leg, in a pathetically random attempt to fill some of the air on either side of him. After a save he's as likely to stare heavenwards and mouth a silent prayer as he is to punch the air in triumph.

Mainly a schoolyard entertainment in our part of the world, handball is popular in northern Europe and the Baltic states (Croatia and Denmark are, respectively, the men's and women's Olympic champions). A trio of lugubrious Swedes extolled the virtues of the sport to me for long minutes on a bus the other day.

Scandinavian handball has had its off-court stories here, too. Two women players, Norwegian Mia Hundvin and Dane Camilla Andersen, civilly married as Danish law allows and residents of Copenhagen, were reportedly outraged when the IOC insisted that their marriage not be mentioned in their player biographies. Management won't discuss the matter.

On Wednesday night I watched Slovenia play Australia in a first round match. The Aussie team, full of players with names ending in "-ic", were not a match for the more agile and highly fancied Slovenians, who beat them 33-20.

Perhaps the music playing on the PA during a last-quarter time out dealt to the local lads. It was the theme from Mission Impossible.