EHF EURO 2022: From difficult qualification to a gold medal twenty years after the last ECh title

by Mário Cesar Navarro Men's EHF Euro 2022, News

Over the last month, the handball world has had its eyes focused on Slovakia and Hungary, the venue for the EHF EURO 2022, which would crown Sweden as winners of the EHF EURO 2022 twenty years after their last European title.

However, the preliminary round was a dream round for Montenegro, Netherlands, and Russia starting from the beginning. All three teams managed to qualify for the Main Round, with Russia winning their group with three wins. At the same time, the Netherlands eliminated Hungary and Portugal, and Montenegro eliminated Slovakia and North Macedonia.

However, Sweden would struggle to qualify for the Main Round with Spain, the Czech Republic, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. After two rounds, Sweden had won against Bosnia-Herzegovina and lost against Spain. This way, in the last matchday, they faced the Czech Republic with the same points but with an advantage head-to-head. In an exciting game, the Czech Republic never gave up and could not go beyond a draw, which would allow Sweden to qualify for the Main Round.

In the preliminary round, Denmark, Montenegro, Iceland, Netherlands, France, Croatia, Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Russia, and Norway qualified for the Main Round.

In group I of the Main Round, Denmark and France started as favourites, while Iceland and Croatia dreamed of the semi-finals. Meanwhile, the Netherlands and Montenegro were eager to continue making history.

The Main Round got off to the best start for Montenegro as they beat Croatia with a fantastic and passionate performance by six goals. While Denmark and France beat Iceland and the Netherlands with some ease, confirming their favouritism. However, despite exciting performances, Montenegro would not manage to win any points in the remaining rounds. Iceland demonstrated their excellent level by beating France with a fantastic and clear victory by six goals, dreaming of qualifying for the semi-finals. On the other hand, Denmark would quickly secure their place in the semi-finals, allowing an evident rotation of their squad throughout the competition.

On the final day of the Main Round, the crucial mistake may have been made that would keep Denmark away from the European title. Iceland needed France to be beaten by Denmark to reach the semi-finals. After 57 minutes in the Danish lead, taking advantage of a 15-minute Danish blackout, France would make a fantastic comeback to win the game by one goal and qualify for the semi-finals.

If the group were fantastic from start to finish, group II would not be far behind. Spain, Russia and Germany had the upper hand with maximum points, but Russia and Germany managed to fight their way into the semi-finals.

However, Spain, Sweden and Norway fought hard to access the semi-finals. The Norwegian victory over Spain opened many doubts for the last round in the penultimate round, with the three teams tied with the same points.

And so it was a crazy last day, Spain confirmed the qualification with a hard victory over Poland and in the previous game of the night Sweden needed a good result again to guarantee the qualification. And once again, the Swedes, who have suffered a lot throughout this EHF EURO 2022 with many positive cases, would win against Norway by one goal and secure their place in the semi-finals.

Thus, on the penultimate day of competition, Norway and Iceland would battle it out for 5th and 6th place and direct access to the IHF World Championship 2023. While in the semi-finals, we would have two sensational matches between Denmark against Spain and France against Sweden.

The Final Weekend started with a sensational match between Iceland and Norway, where both teams were one small step away from the semi-finals and would fight for direct access to the IHF World Championship 2023. In a highly balanced game, it took overtime to determine the Norwegian victory by 33:34.

The first semi-final of the day followed, Spain would make history by beating unequivocally a Denmark who were still looking to find themselves after the blackout in their last Main Round match. Denmark was leading by one goal at halftime but was struggling, while Spain, with a fantastic second half, managed to nullify Denmark in an irrepressible way and won by a clear 29:25.

In the second semi-final of the day, France and Sweden would go head-to-head and put on a thrilling and fantastic match. However, Jim Gottfridsson put in another amazing show to destroy the French defence and send Sweden to the final competition.

The final day of the competition would see the announcement of the EHF EURO 2022 MVP and All-Star Team, where Jim Gottfridson would be voted MVP.

In the bronze medal match of the EHF EURO 2022, Denmark and France were meeting again. Denmark was looking to claim bronze and avoid leaving the competition with three consecutive losses, while France would beat Denmark again.

However, the game that the absence of Mikkel Hansen would mark through injury and the injury to Mathias Gidsel in the first minute will force a lengthy stoppage. As for the match, we had an extremely balanced game. The two teams annihilated each other, with Jacob Holm (Denmark) and Kentin Mahe (France) putting in excellent performances full of spectacle for all tastes. However, at the end of the sixty minutes, the two teams would end up tied at twenty-nine goals, forcing extra time. After extra time, Denmark outplayed France and won the match by 35:33 and the respective bronze medal.

After 16 days of competition, the whole handball world was waiting for the EHF Euro 2022 grand final between chronic contenders Spain and underdogs Sweden. It was an epic game, where the Swedish will and sacrifice were decisive. At the end of the game, in the last attack, the game was tied at twenty-six goals, where Jim Gottfridson’s call in the timeout reflected a nation’s desire. And so it was, a patient, disciplined attack, led by the competition’s MVP, would come to fruition and win a decisive 7 metre with two seconds to go. For the conversion, Niclas Ekberg was called for, and he did not miss, making it twenty years since Sweden last won the gold medal. It was undoubtedly an epic game that deserved overtime full of grand spectacle.

It was a fantastic month of handball, which was not better due to the numerous cases of positive tests throughout the competition. Frankly, the sporting truth of the competition fell short of expectations due to the terrible conditions in which many nations carried out their preparation with many positive cases, the number of players called to replace infected players during the competition, among other situations.

I hope it was the last competition of this dimension with the presence of this unwelcome guest and that we can in the future return to normality with even more spectacular competitions.

Last but not least, I appreciate the invitation of HBOLD.dk and Europamaster.dk to follow and analyze the Danish participation throughout this EHF EURO 2022.

Author Profile

Mário Cesar Navarro
Portuguese handball coach with over 15 years of experience coaching both male and female youth and senior teams. Passionate about game analysis and coaching.