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Everything will come down to Polman (not) being in the game

Both teams still have the chance to make it to the semifinals, but if Montenegro beat Sweden by small goal-difference, the situation will change drastically. France would then be left with no chance and the Netherlands would need to win by almost 10 goals to get in the runner-up spot

France came to Zagreb to first lose a match they dominated for the most part and then failed to record a win against a team that already lost any chance of reaching the semi finals. Portes' team barely managed to record a 24-24 draw, but he didn't seem to mind:

- We'll file a complaint because one of the goals Germany scored wasn't legal- the officiating wasn't at a very high level overall - Portes said after a match.

The referees might have made a few mistakes, but they had nothing to do with the French performance and their horrible game. They didn't deserve to win, just like they don't deserve to go through to the semifinals. Goal keeper Leynaud regrets not winning an extra point:

- We weren't brave enough, we didn't take responsibility, didn't try to score in the right way, which resulted in poor productivity.

Because of that, France no longer depend on themselves. If Montenegro beat Sweden today, France is out. But if Sweden win, this game will become very important since the winner then advanced to the semi finals. Bad news for both these teams is the fact Sweden have very good chance of getting through even if they lose by one or two goals. Only the Netherlands would have a chance to get through in that case if they beat France by nearly 10 goals, which doesn't seem very likely:

- We don't care what the score in the first match will be. We will try and win regardless of it being important result-wise or not. We want to win for ourselves - Leynaud said.

Left back Dembele confirmed it just a few minutes later in a speech that assured the Swedish media that France won't give up if Sweden lose to Montenegro. Either way, France will, as it seems, not have to deal with the top Dutch player Polman, who probably suffered a few cracked ribs after a tough contact with Lazovic yesterday. There is still no official confirmation on extent of her injury or any information on which players will step in for her today.

- I hope the injury won't be as bad as it seems right now. There's a chance she has some cracked ribs, but we need to wait for the test results. Only then will we know whether she will play against France. At this point, I'm afraid that won't be possible - Groener said.

Interestingly, one of the Dutch reporters openly asked Adzic whether they intentionally wanted to get Poleman off the court in order to have better chance of winning. Adzic said no, of course, but that question proves just how important Polman is for the Dutch team. It is still not clear what will Groener do tactics-wise in case he can't count on her. It would clearly be a great problem for his attacking, one of the keys to Dutch success. The defense is a completely different thing - the lack of quality was very visible in the Montenegro game.

We need to wait and see which opponent did a better job recuperating for this match since that will play an important role too. The Dutch team is younger and should be able to recuperate better, but we can't be sure that anyone managed to recover enough from all those clashes with the Montenegrin players in only 24 hours.

The Netherlands-Montenegro game ended with 58 goals yesterday, which is why I cannot understand this margin. Adzic's team have one of the best defenses in the world, but the Dutch amazing transition was read for it. France are not as good in defense and I think that will make the Netherlands a very tough opponent, regardless of Polman playing or not. France played defense-oriented Germany to finish the game at 48 goals (the Germans tried as much as they normally do even though they didn't stand a chance of getting through to the semifinals). As the Dutch keep the pace faster, I expected this match to go over 50 goals. There are a few more reasons to believe that this game will end as an over, one of which being the fact the Dutch goal keepers do not belong to top European level. Also, Montenegro could play an important role if they beat Sweden today, thus disabling France from qualifying to semifinals. It's quite possible that will change a lot regarding this game, but the margin seems to be well off, which is why I'm going with higher stake.