MADRID, 30 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
From this Wednesday until December 19, Spain will become the epicenter of women’s handball with the celebration of a historic World Championship in which the Spanish team wants to shine supported by its well-known competitive character and the warmth it will give it. the public.
For the second time in history, Spain will host an event of these characteristics, eight years after having hosted the Men’s World Cup that crowned the ‘Hispanics’ for the second time. Now, it is the ‘Warriors’ who intend to emulate them and rub shoulders with the best in the world once again, something that is not alien to them and that they have already demonstrated on previous occasions.
The national team will be presented with the desire to leave their mark in a championship with 31 rivals and totally ‘Mediterranean’, with its four venues, Torrevieja, Llíria, Castellón and Granollers, in that part of the country. His journey will begin in the Alicante town where he will have to look for his pass to the quarterfinals, an objective for which he will need to overcome two group stages, the first theoretically more affordable.
And Spain not only presents itself with that extra responsibility that being the host of a great tournament usually gives, but also with the status of current world runner-up, another success that it achieved in 2019 in Japan, where it touched on making history once again and where He showed that he is capable of aspiring to everything if his level and concentration is maximum, especially at the defensive level.
Since that new milestone in women’s national handball, however, things have not been so positive. In the 2020 European Championship, still in the midst of a pandemic, the national team could only be ninth and in the Olympic Games in Tokyo last summer it could not qualify for the quarterfinals when it had recovered with its character and quality to a bad start and seemed have at one’s fingertips.
And after passing through the Japanese capital, in a somewhat unexpected way, the cycle on the bench with Carlos Viver ended, despite the fact that he had a contract until 2024. The Catalan was relieved by his then assistant, José Ignacio Prades, who has had barely three months to refine the ‘Warriors’ for this World Cup where there are new faces in a team that maintains its most veteran and experienced pieces, although the absence of Nerea Pena stands out.
Veteran goalkeeper Silvia Navarro and extreme Carmen Martín and the only survivor of the historic continental silver of 2008, are the leaders of a national team that maintains important players like Shandy Barbosa, with more competitive filming than last summer when she practically left a serious knee injury, Lara González, Alicia Fernández, Ainhoa Hernández or Almudena Rodríguez.
In this way, Carmen Campos, Irene Espínola, Kaba Gassama, Maitane Etxeberria and Laura Hernández are the novelties regarding the Games, all of them having already made their international debut and with the latter as the one with the least experience.
ARGENTINA OPENS THE DREAM
The road to the fight for the medals will begin this Wednesday (8:30 pm / Teledeporte) against Argentina, a rival to which the ‘Guerreras’, who have won their five games prior to this World Cup, have already won with relative ease by 31-16 in the Pre-Olympic held a few months ago in Llíria.
After two days of rest, it will be the turn of China, a team that is unknown, but that is far from the best in recent years, while the closing will be against Austria, which seems the toughest opponent before facing the ‘ Main Round ‘where Spain would meet the three classified in Group G (Croatia, Brazil, Japan and Paraguay) and where it must be among the first two to be able to travel to Granollers to play the quarterfinals.
A path in theory not excessively hard to sneak into the top eight and from there to really start dreaming in a World Cup that, as always, is very open and without a great favorite. The Netherlands will defend their 2019 title and will start in that first line of candidates alongside France, current Olympic champions, Norway and Russia.
DATASHEET.
–EQUIPMENT.
SPAIN: Silvia Navarro (p), Mercedes Castellanos (p); Carmen Martín, Carmen Campos, Silvia Arderius, Eli Cesáreo, Laura Hernández, Jennifer Gutiérrez, Maitane Etxeberria, Lara González, Soledad López, Kaba Gassama, Alicia Fernández, Almudena Rodríguez, Ainhoa Hernández, Irene Espínola, Paula Arcos and Shandy Barbosa.
ARGENTINA: Marisol Carratú (p), Leila Niño (p), Ayelén Rosalez (p), Rosario Urban, Manuela Pizzo, Ayelén García, Rocío Campigli, Luciana Mendoza, Delfina Ojea, Giuliana Gavilán, Antonella Mena, Malena Cavo, Elke Karsten, Valentina Cisneros, Micaela Casasola and Lucía Dalle Crode.
– PAVILION: Torrevieja Sports Palace.
–TIME: 20.30 / Teledeporte.