MADRID, Jan. 8 (SportsFinding) –
The Spanish men's handball team will start on Thursday the European Championship that will host Norway, Sweden and Austria until January 26 with the always complicated mission of defending its historic 2018 title, which would entail the added prize of the Olympic classification.
The 'Hispanics' made history on January 28, 2018 at the Zagreb Arena. His 29-23 victory against Sweden crowned the national handball for the first time as a continental champion and now Jordi Ribera's will try to repeat success, something that only the Swedish gold generation, triple champion between 1998 and 2002, has achieved.
For this, Spain hopes to perform at its level of recent Europeans. The double world champion has been in the semifinals of the last four editions, which has not achieved any other selection, and that of two years ago was her second consecutive final after the loss in 2016 against Germany.
A total of seven medals (one gold, four silver and two bronze) decorate his medal in a continental event with the double value of giving a ticket for Tokyo 2020, for which he needs to reissue title or be runner-up if the throne is for Denmark, already qualified for the Games for her status as current world champion.
On that date, the 'Hispanics' stayed away from the medals (seventh), but they secured at least one Pre-Olympic no matter what happens in this competition. In addition, in this preparation where he has avoided having to play a qualifying phase as a champion, the first EHF Cup was awarded against Austria, Sweden and Norway, and also left good feelings in the Golden League where they again won the Norwegians and only fell against France on penalties.
In this European, the current champion fell framed in Group C, which will be based in Norway Trondheim, and with Germany as the main obstacle to pass with full points. Latvia, rival of the always complicated debut, and the Netherlands seem to have less potential opponents for Jordi Ribera's face in this first part of the road to fighting for the medals that are presented 'affordable'.
Thus, if the Spaniards, as planned, go round, they would cross with the first two of Groups A (Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Belarus) and B (Austria, Macedonia, Czech Republic and Ukraine), leaving for some hypothetical semifinals to other big favorites like France, Denmark, Sweden or Norway.
The coach keeps the block with which he has been working and in this European repeats 15 players who were proclaimed champions of Europe two years ago and, given that the Aleix Gomez end was in the last World Cup, the only novelty is the one 'old acquaintance' as the side Jorge Maqueda, who returns after missing the last two major international events.
PREMIERE BEFORE THE 'GIANT' KRISTOPANS
The preparation for this European has been positive, both in terms of the physical issue and the results, with victory in the traditional International Tournament of Spain by beating Portugal (30-25), Poland (35-31) and Russia ( 32-24).
Now, the positive feelings transmitted by the national team must be reflected in the premiere of this Thursday against Latvia, debuting in a European and first touchstone before the key duel against Germany.
The Latvians were classified as seconds of their group behind Slovenia, a rival they managed to win at home by 25-24 and with huge performance by their best man, the side Dainis Kristopans, author of 13 goals.
The Vardar player, current European champion, is the great offensive reference of the Armands Uscins from his 2.15 meters and Gonzalo Pérez de Vargas already suffered in the last 'F4' of the continental tournament when he made 10 goals in the semifinal before Barça, although he has been suffering lately from physical problems.
DATA SHEET.
–EQUIPMENT.
SPAIN: Pérez de Vargas (P), Corrales (P); Maqueda, Fernández, Entrerríos, A.Dujshebaev, Sarmiento, Aginagalde, Solé, Figueras, Cañellas, Morros, Gómez, Ariño, Guardiola and D.Dujshebaev.
LATVIA: Kugis (P), Raitis Purins (P), Kuksa (P), Arajs, Leja, Jurdzs, Kreicbergs, Kurzemnieks, Versakovs, Tuminskis, Kristopans, Lilienfelds, Klesniks, Pavlovics, Strazdins, Ermanis, Dude.
– PAVILION: Trondheim Spektrum.
– HOUR: 20.30 / Teledeporte.