France and Austria open with clear wins; Faroese make history
The opening night of Women's EHF EURO 2026 Qualifiers saw high-flying France throw off their campaign with a ruthless victory against Kosovo. Three of the four Balkan teams — Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro — also joined the winners’ list.
It was a tough game obviously — Croatia away, a lot of people, a lot of noise and a tough team of course. But I think we as a team played a really good game today. We received 25 goals, which I think is OK and I'm quite happy. I am very proud of my team and what we showed on the court today.
I think we didn't play a really good game but we won and that's what we wanted and what's most important. We didn't play well in the first half, but the other half was much better.
We were really serious. We played good, especially on defence. We gave ourselves the opportunities to have fast-breaks balls so we could score easy goals and make things easy for ourselves. We have a new team. We have to build connections on the court, but games like these give us opportunities to work, and we used it to the maximum tonight.
Playing against the world champions is also challenging for the biggest national teams, not just for us. We are not at our best. We have many absences and young girls are gradually joining the team. As captain, I can be satisfied that we have all given our maximum. But I'm also aware that we have a lot of hard work ahead of us. Matches like this also serve to understand how much work needs to be done to play at a serious international level.
The Belgians perhaps surprised us a bit, as we didn’t expect them to fight so hard. In the first half, we showed that good defence also leads to a good attack, as we scored easy goals from fast breaks. In the second half, we dropped off a little, but later it turned out that we were the stronger team.
We started the match a bit poorly, as we didn’t know what to expect. It was our first game at this level, and I’m satisfied with our performance. In the end, we lost by only seven goals against a very strong team. I’m really proud of all my teammates and the whole team for the way we played.
I am satisfied with the result, although we had some issues with conceding easy goals. The mistakes we made did not affect the final score. I am happy for our debutants, and it is important that we have as many players as possible involved in the roster. We can play better, and I believe we will.
It was a tough match for us because we played against a strong opponent with very strong players. We tried our best and fought hard. It is important for us to keep improving from game to game.
We need to work better on defence, and the offence wasn't quite right today. This is basically a new journey for us. We've lost some really good players, but it's just a matter of moving forward.
They have a young team, but they play a clear system. I am very proud of how my team performed. I am only disappointed with the result, as a closer result would have been possible. But Austria is not our opponent in the battle for a EURO ticket — that is Greece.
We can be satisfied with the 39 goals, but 30 goals against is definitely too many. Something like that could cost us the qualification. Now we need to recover quickly, get together and change our defensive strategy as soon as possible. We left far too much space, didn't commit enough fouls and left the inner block pretty much on its own.
