Norway vs Serbia Prediction & Betting Tips - Handball World Championship

Prediction published on 18/01/2023, 11:34  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 18/01/2023 at 13:06 in Handball World Championship Predictions

Norway open Group III of the main round of the 2023 Men's World Handball Championships with a game against Serbia. The other countries in this group are Germany, the Netherlands, Qatar and Argentina. Norway are already top of this group having won two preliminary round group matches against Argentina and the Netherlands. They also beat North Macedonia to comfortably win the group. Norway are ahead of Germany on goal difference and two clear of Serbia and the Netherlands with Qatar and Argentina yet to earn a point. The top two in this group go into the last eight and a win for Norway here will take them into the quarter finals. After this match they take on Qatar and then Germany. Norway reached the final of these championships in both 2017 and 2019 and the quarter finals two years ago.

Serbia have struggled in these championships since getting to the round of the last 16 in 2013. They've missed three of the four championships played since then and didn't get to the main round in 2019. Four of the last five European Championships have seen them fail to get to the main round, so they'll be delighted with this 2023 performance. Serbia qualified from Group E of the preliminary round finishing second behind Germany. They had wins over Algeria and Qatar but narrowly lost to Germany. That's given them two points to carry forward into this main round group. After playing Norway, they take on Argentina and the Netherlands but it's looking difficult for them to finish in the top two unless they can cause a shock and win this match. We don't believe that's going to happen.