2016 European Men's Handball Championship in Poland

[Verjamem]

The 12th European Men's Handball Championship will take a place in Poland, on 17-31 January 2016. Matches will be played in Kraków, Katowice, Sopot, Łódź and Wrocław.

First group stage
Group A (Kraków) - France, Poland, Macedonia, Serbia
Group B (Katowice) - Croatia, Iceland, Belarus, Norway
Group C (Wrocław) - Spain, Germany, Sweden, Slovenia
Group D (Gdańsk) - Denmark, Hungary, Russia, Montenegro

What do you think about tournament? I'm very glad that we'll host a big handball event But on the other hand, I hope that referees won't be too much friendly for us :? I want Polish team to finally get a medal of European Championship, thanks to sport skills.

 

[aletem]

These are the pots for the draw this upcoming Friday:

Pot 1:


Pot 2:


Pot 3:


Pot 4:


Poland will play in Group A, Croatia in group B, Germany in group C, Denmark in group D.

Had Bosnia won over Belarus home (it ended 22:22), all ex-yus would have qualified to the championship.

 

[Schlagerman1]

I wish that Sweden gets Denmark, Belarus and Montenegro. I think that would suit Sweden the most!
Nightmare would be France, Germany and Serbia perhaps. We usually never wins over France.

 

[ShoeFlo]

Anybody knows why Croatia, Germany and Denmark were allocated to the groups prior to the draw? Just for fun?

Nevermind. I really have a good feeling for .. after our unlucky elimination in the World Cup we are hungry for bigger successes.
We had bad years but meanwhile watching our matches is a fun thing to do again because we play creative and beautiful handball and the team works very well. We beat Spain in the qualification, that was an impressing performance. Our coach Dagur Sigurdsson knows how to motivate the players and how to integrate the talents into the team

Also a good feeling for . Two blowout wins in the qualification against Serbia and against Montenegro

Hope Germany and Iceland will be in different groups so they will not impede each other

 

[Verjamem]

Congratulations to all qualified teams - I hope you'll enjoy that tournament

In the first moment, I also didn't know how will draw look. Fortunately, I saw a allocation to groups here - http://bit.ly/16drawPOTS I don't know, who I want in our group. I think Croatia, Belarus and Montenegro would be most favorable rivals, but it's not the point of that all. This is the European Championship, you should prove there that you can beat everyone.

 

[aletem]

I wouldn't mind having Macedonia in either group B or D. And there hopefully with Iceland (or Hungary so we can finally beat them) and Montenegro/Norway. I am really hoping we get Montenegro.

 

[SRBIJA]

 

[Tinchey]

Damn Group A... :|
I guess we were lucky.

 

[Schlagerman1]

Oh, quite hard group for Sweden. Slovenia and Germany are both teams that on a good day can do very well against any team. And Spain is a nightmare, I would have liked to have Croatia or Denmark personally. Our guys need to play their best to qualify from this group!

 

[Milos-BC]

Nightmare group for And in such a poor condition that we are, we are returning home very fast, no doubt.

 

[EscGeek]

hard group for slovenia too....but at least we're there...
(qualification group for denmark 2014 contained both iceland and belarus)

I'm hoping for 8th place or higher

 

[aletem]

Glad we skipped group C. I think Group A would suit ! France at the beginning isn't playing at its highest, plus we almost got them in Skopje. Now with a full squad it may be different, who knows.. They are already reigning European and World Champions so maybe this championship they won't be in a turbo gear. Poland has a great team and plays home, but we play well against them, so it's not bad. Finally, Serbia has an amazing squad, but they don't really have chemistry (and not on the level as they were in 2012) and never use their potential (take Ilic and Vujin..they play really well for their clubs, not for the NT). They don't have Stanic, so this is the chance here (Kocic is kinda clueless as a goalie tbh and he was pretty bad in Metalurg).

We cross with Group B and there is a point hunting season. I think Croatia with their new coach is weaker, so they may end second in their group behind Iceland. We should beat either Norway or Belarus.

 

[aletem]

This starts pretty soon!!

 

[ShoeFlo]

I'm looking forward to the Handball Euro like every time but somehow we are cursed this time. Our best player Uwe Gensheimer will miss the tournament due to injury as well as Wienczek (great talent) and Groetzki. I thought maybe we can reach the Semi Final this time cause our development has been positive recently (thanks to our coach Dagur Sigurðsson) but probably we have to set ourselves a smaller goal. Some players are hard to replace and a tournament like this is very exhausting since you play every second day. We will see. I guess we will fight for the second place in our group against Sweden.

 

[aletem]

Slovenia has Veselin Vujovic as their coach, so they are gaining there. He is currently coaching PPD Zagreb and Zagreb demonstrated some good handball (beating THW Kiel, uptight with Flensburg and Veszprem).

 

[ShoeFlo]

Tomorrow the torunament will finally start with the first matches of Group A & B
Host Poland will play the evening match

16 CET: vs
18 CET: vs
18:15 CET: vs
20:30 CET: vs

and probably won't have problems with their opponents. Easy wins.
Also Poland with the advantage of playing at home is clear favorite against a Serbia side which however is an unpleasant opponent

Iceland vs Norway seem to be the only close match. Iceland's team is clearly overaged. The keeper is are far from worldclass and the second string is not really good. However Iceland has Aron Palmarsson and he can always make the difference being one of the best playmakers of the world. Just give him the ball and hope he make something ingenius
Luckily Norway is just European average so I think Iceland can win this match if they perform at their level.

Áfram Ísland!

 

[EscGeek]

aand we're out.

but it was more than well deserved

I'm not even mad

 

[Yazy]

My prediction for semi final: , , and .

 

[ShoeFlo]

Yeah, and are very likely the four countries that will face each other in the Semis

What I like about international Handball competitions is that the team quality is very balanced but after all it's more or less always the same countries that qualify for the SF... and either or

I think if we ( ) could appoint our best players we would have been a serious contender for the Top 4. Unfortunately our best player Gensheimer is missing due to injury + 2 other important players. Despite these bad conditions we play a great tournament so far. Especially our defense does a brillant job (at least in the second half against Sweden and today against Slovenia). We were too naive against Spain, we proved great mentallity against Sweden by coming back after -4 goals disadvantage in first half and today we dominated Slovenia without big problems. Next opponent is . This won't be easy... they are stronger than Slovenia but worse than Sweden so it will be a tight match. I hope the best. We can finish on 5th place in this Euro, I believe we can do it

Don't wanna talk about my darlings from .. it's time for a big change. Dismissing the players of the "golden generation" who are all around 35 years old now and give the young players a chance. I think right now Iceland don't have quality players in the age frame 20 - 24 years so that's a problem. They are facing difficult times. However, the Icelandic team from the under-19 World Cup last year was amazingly strong so Iceland can still hope for a bright future. Just a matter of time if they return strong.
This time they totally messed it up against Belarus. They were 24-20 ahead after around 37 minutes and it look like they got everything under control. However suddenly they made stupid mistakes, throwing from bad positions, playing bad passes... Probably the only team of the world who is more nervous when they are leading comfortably instead of being behind So that was the crunch point for Iceland in this tournament. They were close to enter the second group stage with 2 points but instead they are knocked out...

 

[Yazy]

Spain and Denmark dominate pretty much always.

The French always make it seem as they are not doing well, but it is actually always a second phase of competition where they turn up the engine and then in semi final and onwards they go full force. BTW, I find it really bizzare that ever since 2008., our team (Croatia) was the only one that prevented them from becoming champions on few occasions. I think it happened 3 times, can´t remember exactly. But either way, when not eliminated in the earlier phase, France always triumphs in the end.

Poland is a solid team, that on several occasions have surprised other teams like Denmark, Spain, Croatia and many more. And with home advantage, they are going to have a crazy amount of support. Big support can turn tides in many situations when it comes to competitions like these.

Btw, I can´t say I completely agree about switching to younger generations. That needs to be approached carefully and observed which players go together well as a team. You need to determine which players have what it takes and which don´t. Age doesn´t necessarily have to be the thing.
I personally think that our handball federation got rid of vet players too early, and are trying to force a generation switch a bit. You can clearly see that we are not doing as good as we used to. France, on the other hand, seems quite careful with their vets.