MADRID, 5 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The pivot Javi Rodríguez, from Logroño La Rioja, is the main novelty in the squad of the national handball coach, Jordi Ribera, for the matches against Denmark and Germany, the last two of the EHF EURO Cup 2024.
As reported this Wednesday by the Royal Spanish Handball Federation (RFEBM), this will be the last activity of the season for the ‘Hispanics’, who will face the Danish team in Almería on Thursday, April 27, and the German team in Berlin on Sunday, April 30. All the internationals will be concentrated from the 24th in Almería.
The main novelty in this call is the young Javi Rodríguez, 20 years old, and who was already in the pre-list for the 2022 European Championship. Continental champion with the junior team, of which he was its captain, he could have the opportunity to debut in official match, being the second of the 2002/03 generation to do so, after Jan Gurri, who premiered in the previous activity.
For the rest, Jordi Ribera maintains the block used in previous activities, although regular players such as Gonzalo Pérez de Vargas, Antonio García, Ian Tarrafeta, Jorge Maqueda, Ferran Solé or Ángel Fernández return, while on this occasion Alex Dujshebaev, Joan will not be Cañellas, Adriá Figueras or Aleix Gómez.
“The objective is to continue preparing ourselves for everything that is to come in the future, although, obviously, we want to play against two great teams and try to win them, as always. We continue to distribute minutes so that people gain experience and that will help us more late and that is why we always try to combine a group of players with seniority and youngsters, compensated to compete against rivals of this entity,” Ribera said in statements provided by the RFEBM.
The Catalan coach described the season of a national team as “very positive”, which “has grown” and is “always capable of competing”. “There were two important objectives, which were to get a place in the Pre-Olympic and to go far in the World Cup, and we achieved them, also hanging a medal. The group has always shown attitude, desire and ambition, and those are the values that have taken us far to over time,” he said.
–LIST OF CALLED.
-Goalkeepers: Gonzalo Pérez de Vargas (Barça) and Sergey Hernández (SL Benfica).
– Central: Agustín Casado (MT Melsungen) and Ian Tarrafeta (PAUC Handball).
-Wing-backs: Daniel Dujshebaev (Kielce Industry), Antonio García (Fraikin Granollers), Jorge Maqueda (HBC Nantes) and Imanol Garciandia (OTP Bank-Pick Szeged).
-Wings: Daniel Fernández (TVB Stuttgart), Ángel Fernández (Limoges Hand 87), Ferran Solé (PSG Handball) and Kauldi Odriozola (HBC Nantes).
-Pivots: Javier Rodriguez (Logrono La Rioja), Iñaki Peciña (Chambery Savoie) and Abel Serdio (Orlen Wisla Plock).
-Defensive Specialist: Miguel Sánchez-Migallón (Kielce Industry).