EHF Euro 2020 - Sweden, Norway, Austria

[mikh]

Qualification groups were drawn yesterday. First 2 teams in each group go through, together with 4 best placed 3rd best teams (only matches against 1st and 2nd ranked teams will be taken into account to establish these):

Group 1: Germany, Poland, Israel, Kosovo
Group 2: Croatia, Serbia, Switzerland, Belgium
Group 3: Macedonia, Iceland, Turkey, Greece
Group 4: Slovenia, Netherlands, Latvia, Estonia
Group 5: Belarus, Czechia, Bosnia Hercegovina, Finland
Group 6: France, Portugal, Lithuania, Romania
Group 7: Hungary, Russia, Slovakia, Italy
Group 8: Denmark, Montenegro, Ukraine, Faroe Islands

On top of these, there will be a EHF Euro Cup, contested at the same dates, between the 4 teams already qualified: Sweden, Norway, Austria (co-hosts) and Spain (defending champion).

http://eurohandball.com/article/30496

The only thing I don't really understand is why, since there are 8 groups, didn't they organise playoffs between the all 3rd placed teams, to fill the last 4 places. The only worse system from the current one would've been that from junior competitions where they say "groups 1 to X send an extra team".

[mikh]

Group 4 will allow at least 1 of NED, LAT, EST to qualify for a EC for the first time in history. In fact, if we consider the only time NED has been at a WCh was in 1961, it will feel like a premiere qualification for any of these teams.

Group 6 will be a similar affair and will see the return of at least one of POR (last time Euro 2006), LTU (only did WCh 1997 and Euro 1998), ROU (last Euro in 1996, last WCh in 2011) to a major competition.

[Scheersberg]

Group 4 will allow at least 1 of NED, LAT, EST to qualify for a EC for the first time in history. In fact, if we consider the only time NED has been at a WCh was in 1961, it will feel like a premiere qualification for any of these teams.

Clearly these teams benefit from the fact that for the first time now 24 teams will qualify for EC. Holland even still has a chance to qualify for the WC 2019, but for the PO they will meet Sweden, so it 's a chance, that 's true but the chance is between 1 and 5%
Actually Romania did win the 1961 WC, in total they did win the WC four times, but in recent years Romanian Men handball seems, or better is less suc6full.

[mikh]

Group 4 will allow at least 1 of NED, LAT, EST to qualify for a EC for the first time in history. In fact, if we consider the only time NED has been at a WCh was in 1961, it will feel like a premiere qualification for any of these teams.

Clearly these teams benefit from the fact that for the first time now 24 teams will qualify for EC. Holland even still has a chance to qualify for the WC 2019, but for the PO they will meet Sweden, so it 's a chance, that 's true but the chance is between 1 and 5%
Actually Romania did win the 1961 WC, in total they did win the WC for times, but in recent years Romanian Men handball seems, or better is less suc6full.

Like you said, Holland's chances to get past Sweden in June are quite small, but I do think they'll finally make it to a tournament in 2020. On paper, they have a decent team with young players getting Bundesliga experience and a very good coach. What they do usually lack is top matches experience. But in this group, they might just have a very very tiny edge on LAT and EST. Still, these 3 are pretty balanced and a couple of bad matches could even deny them a top-4 3rd place finish.

About Romania, ajjj... too much to talk about. We benefit from a good coach currently, who seemed to be involved at youth levels as well, but... it's 20+ years of neglecting this sector in Romania and despite still having very talented players, they're struggling with consistently playing modern handball. The group is definitely easier than the last one (where we scored 2 wins and played 2 other close matches), but at the same time I think both POR and LTU are at our level so it can really go either way. In fact, POR has consistently beaten us lately (albeit in friendlies) and while I do think we are a tad better than LTU, last time we played them in Qualis they beat us twice (granted, the matches didn't matter anymore and our players seemed completely unmotivated). Moreover, LTU has some very cool players in the ASOBAL (our coach should know them really well, though) including Bernatonis (Granollers, EHF Cup), plus Malasinskas (Zaporozhye) who showed great class in the CL this year.
I think our first couple of matches can be crucial: we play away in Portugal (very important!) and then receive France (which is not at their max and is always trying new things in Qualis).

[aletem]

All I care about are the games between Macedonia and Greece! That return leg match is giving me life!!

[mikh]

Did they just make everything incredibly complicated for Euro 2022?

http://www.eurohandball.com/article/31051
Or will it be more clear in practice?

[Bo$ko]

Before the last round... We can predict which teams could be the best 3rd ranked.
Anyway, only one win against big opponent in the last round, for some teams should be enough for EURO 2020 ticket.

It'll be fun! I predict that teams from Group 1, 3, 6, 7 will not qualify as best 3rd.

[bocea]

I think teams from groups 2,5,8 will qualify as best 3rd ranked team.

Poland I think will beat Israel today. In this case Israel will have very small chances to qualify due to bad goal difference.
Iceland and Macedonia probably will win their home matches, so Turkey will be 3rd with 0 points against first two teams.
Netherlands have very bad goal difference, so they probably will not qualify.
Romania and Lithuania will play hard away matches with strong teams so probably both lost. 3rd ranked team will have 0 points in this case.
Italy will lose to Hungary and will be also another 3rd ranked team with zero points.

Who exactly will be lucky one from theese teams very gard to predict, too many various factors can affect for result

[Bo$ko]

I think teams from groups 2,5,8 will qualify as best 3rd ranked team.

Yes... + NED who needs a win against LAT today...

[dutchfan]

Netherlands Will finally play in a big tournament after 58 years

[Bo$ko]

Pots should be like :

1 - ESP, SWE, FRA, DEN, CRO, CZE
2 - NOR, SLO, GER, MKD, HUN, BLR
3 - ISL, AUT, MNE, POR, LAT, SUI
4 - RUS, POL, UKR, SRB, BIH, NED

[matt_]

Yeah, and they are exactly like this.

https://men2020.ehf-euro.com/newsdetail ... l-be-done/

I think it's good about seedings in handball that hosts teams are located in pots according to their "strength".

[aletem]

Easy group for Macedonia!

[mikh]

Easy group for Macedonia!

Easy group, but rough start Mitrevski providential!

Awesome display by Portugal who confirm they have a great group of players. But in that complicated group, the +3 win vs France could quickly be overturned by a meltdown to Norway.
To think that CSM Bucharest had a top class coach all along, just coaching the wrong team

Also refs seem to be very strict about discipline and we've already seen Spain and Germany get 2 red cards each in their first games.

[Bo$ko]

Montenegro first ever win on EURO!

[Frederik]

Wow Denmark and France is out. That really proves how good The next Best countries are. But i am still very suprised

[Frederik]

Wow Denmark and France is out. That really proves how good The next Best countries are. But i am still very suprised

[Mr. 007]

Hmmm...level has rised, it's not just about 4-5 countries anymore

Danes have bought 20.000 tickets for the coming rounds...guess the arenas will be pretty empty?

We have the best team ever this time, and done with the silver ware. It's nothing less than gold that matters now, so it will be exiting to see if they actually can pull it off for the first time

Looking good though, especially since Denmark flopped this ec, playing like nervous wrecks against Hungary...not worthy to move on, and they didn't either

[mikh]

Group B is really awesome, with very equal teams and really anything can happen on a given day. Looking forward to today's matches!
Indeed, Norway has a lot of things going their way in this tournament. However, matches between Scandinavian teams are very unpredictable and NOR has 2 of them left.
Iceland is such a weird team, capable of the highest highs and lowest lows within the space of just one match, several times in a competition.
I'm excited to see Portugal doing so well and I hope they can keep it going and clinch a OQT spot. This team has transformed so much over the past 2-3 years.
Slovenia is in a really good position as well, but Hungary will want to challenge that, as the OQT spot is at play! Slovenia has had a great tournament that far, Hungary pretty good too, besides that melt down vs. Norway.

[gergő]

no words can describe my feelings right now.
we (hungary) have no expectations before the tournament among the fans nor in official. the second one was so unique, honestly, i've never seen any similar statement before. maybe this was the key factor since they are still standing and have a possibility to fight for a medal. this is insane. i guess playing without pressure is our way going forward.


on the other hand, i still dunno how it can happen that we will enter the court on Tuesday 20.30 then once again on Wednesday 16.00. we are talking about two very important games which decide how far we get.

[Frederik]

no words can describe my feelings right now.
we (hungary) have no expectations before the tournament among the fans nor in official. the second one was so unique, honestly, i've never seen any similar statement before. maybe this was the key factor since they are still standing and have a possibility to fight for a medal. this is insane. i guess playing without pressure is our way going forward.


on the other hand, i still dunno how it can happen that we will enter the court on Tuesday 20.30 then once again on Wednesday 16.00. we are talking about two very important games which decide how far we get.

Hungary have really impressed me a lot, and even without Lekai they drawed against Denmark and beat Slovenia by one, and also made a big comeback against Iceland which is really impressive after their Star player Lekai Got injured

[kleber]

Portugal best performance ever,5 or 6 place.
The best so far was 7 place in 2000.

Now olympic qual in april.

[mikh]

Amazing result for Portugal! I learned to appreciate this team throughout the qualis and this euro. First I thought they're just lucky, but with Porto and Sporting also doing well in the eurocups these past seasons and the NT confirming their run, something good seems to be happening in Portuguese male handball. It's really cool how they came from nowhere to play the OQT! I hop they make it to Tokyo!

Quintana (Cuban born) is an absolute monster! One of the best GKs these past seasons. I wonder which big team will land him.

Despite the poor end, Hungary was a breath of fresh air, with their young and positive team. I know it is disappointing to miss on their main objective, but like some of you said here, they came into the competition with an experimental team and 0 expectations and they played a decisive match for the semis. There are some players there who are pure talent: Ligetvari, Banhidi and Mathe are my favourites!

In general it has been a nice Euro, with many teams showing a very good level and I think the expansion to 24 participants is a real success!

I'm only sorry for Norway that they won't get the gold. They have such a nice team to watch as a neutral. But credit must go to Croatia, who narrowly deserved it in the semi. And I think that's largely due to that amazing defence with Duvnjak in front for close to 80 mins, constantly breaking any rhythm of the Norwegian attack.