Two teams stand together under the korf (basket) and have their picture taken after the first match at the Korfball World Championships in Taiwan. They are Brazil and the Netherlands. Tom Thumb versus the giants of the game. To be clear: the small country of the Netherlands is the giant in this case, 11-times world champion and seeking for continuity of their winning streak in international korfball after losing their only world championships final back in 1991. Big country Brazil is the small challenging team, admirers of the Dutch squad, asking for a joint photo.
The match ended in a 40-7 victory for the Dutch. An expected big result, which the Brazilians themselves are not at all sad about. “It’s just an honor to play against the Netherlands,” said Bruno Ometto Tunussi, who scored three goals. “They are só good, it was a great experience to play against them and learn from them.” That learning process already happens during the match. Player Vinicius Da Silva Gama: “We want to learn their speed of passing and the use of their body. They are physically strong. That is also an important part of the game. We want to take that back to Brazil, to teach the players at home the real korfball.”
Money
Korfball is a very small sport Brazil, there is a small competition, with under ten teams in total, that takes place around the two major cities: Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. At the World Cup, the national team only consists of nine players. The starting line-up consists of eight players, which means the Brazilian has got only one substitute. Besides that: it’s not the strongest conceivable line-up they have in Taiwan. It has to do with money. While korfball is a high level sport in the Netherlands with financial support from the government, this is not the case at all in Brazil. “We have to pay for everything ourselves. And not everyone is able to do that. That’s a shame, because it means we can’t be here with our strongest team,” says Vinicius, who is playing korfball since 2011. Despite not being with all the best players, he is confident winning at least one match this tournament. “There are two countries here that we can beat, I’m not going to say which ones, but we definitely have to win one of them. Then we have done well.”
60 goals
The big defeat against the Netherlands was by the way not that big according to the Brazilians. The memory of a major loss at a previous World Championship is still there. “In 2015 we played a match against Belgium (number two of the world, DtG) at the World Championships, when we conceded more than 60 goals. We wanted to prevent that this time,” says 35-year-old Vinicius “We succeeded, haha !” Two comments that must be made are: the matches then lasted two times 30 minutes and now four times ten minutes and the Dutch squad did show some mercy. Nevertheless, the nine Brazilian amateur players can take the experience back home to Brazil, hoping to make the small sport a little bit bigger in their home country.