Host Greece lost to world champion Croatia as well as its dream for the semifinals of the Olympic men 's handball tournament in Athens on August 24.

Croatia beat the host 33-27 after leading 19-11 at half time.

Fierce Croatians made a strong start, and Greece only managed to stay close for a brief while before its opponents sped up the pace for a big lead.

Greece resurged in the second half and led 16-14 only to reduce the gap to 6 goals, thanks to Alexis Alvanos, whose performance rose after a lusterless first half.

The host finished the match without goalkeeper Dimitris Kaffatos, who was injured on the 36th minute.

Left back Mirza Dzomba became Croatia's most prolific player with 11 goals out of 13 shots.

Croatia will now face Hungary in a semifinal on Thursday, who overcame South Korea 30-25 earlier in the afternoon.

Greek coach Ulf Hakan Schefvert thought the result was no surprise.

"I felt that the game had already ended before it even began," he said, "we played against a very good team, which has a lot of confidence."

"Maybe we could have beaten the Croatians once, if we played 25 games against them.

"We have two games ahead of us, we will try to do our best."

No Greek men's handball team has previously competed in the Olympic Games despite the sport's 67 year history in Olympic competition.

Officials from the Greek Handball Federation (GHF) are confident that the teams will be competitive at home.

"We have done a lot of work to set the ground so that our national handball teams would have a decent performance in Athens in August," said Stelios Angeloudis, president of GHF and president of the National Olympic Academy.

Croatia is the Olympic champion in Atlanta Games in 1996.

"I'm very happy. We played really well and especially in our 3- 2-1 defense," Croatian coach Lino Cervar said.

Croatia first competed at the world championships in 1995 and won the silver medal. During the next three championships, the best result was a ninth place in 2001.

At the 2003 world championships, Croatia won the gold by defeating Germany in the final 34-31, which earned the team a place at the 2004 Games.