Highly entertaining EHF Euro that took place in the capitals of Slovakia and Hungary over the last 3 weeks is over! There were 14 XPS teams at the beginning of the tournament, which was 2 more than at the World Cup in Egypt one year ago. Let’s go step by step through the development of the tournament for all of the teams using XPS Network to prepare their team and achieve the best possible results!
Main Round: 7 out, 7 in
There were 6 groups of 4 teams at the start of the Euro and only half of them went through to the Main Round. We’ve seen a surprising exit of Portugal, a close battle at Group E where Czech Republic bravely fought both later finalists and we have seen close eliminations of both Serbia and Slovenia. The following 7 teams made it to the two 6-team groups of the Main Round:
5 XPS teams in TOP6
After the elimination of Germany and Russia in the Main Phase battles, it was clear that there will be 5 XPS teams in the tournament TOP6. The only question was what would be the final ranking of them all! In a formidable battle for the 5th place, Iceland has showed they are hot favourites for medals in the years to come with their campaign in Budapest that ended with beating Norway by the “buzzer goal” in the last second of overtime.
Denmark faced France in the bronze-medal match and this time it ended in their first ever EHF EURO victory against the French. It also decided we will see yet another All-XPS podium, same like a year ago at the World Cup in Egypt.
Fifth title for Sweden, after 2 decades of waiting
It was in 2002 that Sweden last celebrated an EHF EURO title. When the teams met in the 2018 final, Spain won clearly, 29:23, but that was not at all the case in the 2022 final, as the match was level until the final buzzer — and Sweden secured the trophy thanks to the after time penalty goal.
“It is incredible what we have achieved. We went through a very difficult moments during the tournament including the coronavirus, but we never stopped believing in our abilities. We played some fantastic handball in the final, especially in defense. It was incredibly tight till the last second,” said the Norwegian coach of the Swedish team Glenn Solberg in the EHF press release.
Although Spain missed out on defending their title, they still added another medal to their collection — and they already had the record in this category, with four silver medals won before 2022. Now, the ‘Hispanos’ have five silver medals won at the EHF EURO.
XPS + Handball = Lovestory
We are very proud to be a part of the amazing journey of all the teams participating the EHF EURO 2022!
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