Debrecen – Czech handball players will enter the European Championship on Friday with a match against Romania. The national team wants to confirm the role of the slight favorite and claim a victory at the start, which could be crucial in the fight for promotion from the basic group B. One of the Czech mainstays, Charlotte Choleva, is awaiting a duel with several teammates from Ramnica Valcea’s team, coach Bent Dahl the same club still led by November.
The national team appears in probably the most balanced basic group of the entire championship. After the match against Romania, they will face Serbia on Sunday and defending bronze medalist Montenegro on Tuesday. The Czech team will play the entire opening phase in Debrecen, Hungary is organizing the tournament together with Austria and Switzerland. The first two teams will advance to the next part, which will be two six-member quarter-final groups.
“It’s always good for confidence to get two points from the opening game in the championship. But it’s not just about winning, it’s also about feeling good. It’s about going into the rest of the tournament believing in your strengths and your system,” said Dahl in a media recording.
Romanian women have won several medals at major events in the past, but are currently on the decline. They have lost seven of their last eight matches and suffered five consecutive defeats in preparation for the championship, even though they faced elite teams from Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. One of the best handball players in history, shooter Cristina Neagu, has already ended her national team career.
“Romania has a lot of young players in their team. There is a certain change of generations, they changed some of the best players. We will see how the young players deal with it, it will be something new for them to take more responsibility in the championship. The Romanians can surprise, but they can also to finish fourth in the group,” said Dahl.
“They have excellent individual skills, that’s what they’re good at – shooting, one-on-one action. We’ll see how good they are in the collective game. We should succeed by being a more collective team,” added the Norwegian coach of the Czech team.
At the beginning of November, by mutual agreement, he ended up at the Romanian club Ramnicu Valcea after more than three years. “I wouldn’t say it’s special for me from that point of view. Yes, it was a bit unexpected, but I’m OK with being done. After three and a half years, sometimes you need a change. It wasn’t the happy ending I wanted. But I still have a lot of good friends there. I’m not sad about it, life goes on and I’m always looking to the future,” said Dahl.
“On the one hand, it’s a bit special, because I know all the Romanian players, their coaching team. But what’s important is what will be on the field. I want to win the match, feelings are secondary,” added Dahl, whose girls scored draws in the general round for the championship with Angola and Spain in the preparatory tournament in France.
Cholevová has been working at the Ramnicu Valcea club since the beginning of this year. “It will definitely be special for me. I recently read on some Facebook pages in Romania that they will beat us and similar talk. So I definitely have a lot of motivation,” Cholevová said.
Debrecen is located near the Romanian border, so the rivals will probably have a practically home environment in the hall for 6,500 spectators. “I expect that there will be several thousand fanatical fans from Romania in the audience. It will be a tough atmosphere, they will try to put us under pressure throughout the game, they will help their team. Romanian supporters are more like football fans, they are wilder in the audience. The girls they’re going to have to deal with that,” Dahl said.
“Debrecín is a short distance from Romania. When I talked with my teammates from the club, they said that they only drove here for an hour and a half. So I think there will be a very wild atmosphere. I believe that some of our fans will also come and it will be great.” Cholevová added.
The Czech national team will appear at the European Championship for the first time since 2020, its highest being two eighth places from 1994 and 2002. The national team unexpectedly reached the same position last year at the World Championship, where Dahl led it for the first time at a major event.
The match against Romania will start on Friday at 18:00. In the last match between them at the Euro six years ago, the Czech team lost 28:31, a year earlier they unexpectedly won 28:27 in the round of 16 of the World Championship.
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Source: www.ceskenoviny.cz
