Lucky Norway; dominant Denmark — 2024 finalists open EURO Cup victorious
The Women’s EHF EURO 2024 finalists took the first points in the new-look EHF EURO Cup, which is played with eight teams for the first time. While record EHF EURO champions Norway had a tough nut to crack against Romania, ultimately winning 29:27, Denmark easily cruised past Czechia, 41:25.
In the first half we created a lot of good chances, but we struggled with the final pass. It was sloppy, which made us lose several opportunities and kept us from pulling away. We also came out a bit poorly in the second half, which gave Romania the chance to make the game even. It’s good that we won, but there were a few too many chances we weren’t clinical enough to take advantage of.
In the end of the first half we got a little bit scared of them, but in the second half we did a really good job — but against Norway it wasn’t enough. They have a lot of good players, so we have to be maximum, maximum. But in the end, I think It was a good strart for us.
We had a solid defence and also scored some fast-break goals, which helped widen the gap between the teams. We tried to bring a lot of intensity and physicality into the game to work on that aspect as well. It’s good preparation to play matches like this before the World Championship, especially with our new coaches.
You can’t really be satisfied with this result. Losing by 16 goals is not what we wanted. But it’s clear that they have so many experienced players who’ve played in championships. In our team right now, it’s only our goalkeeper who has that kind of experience. We lost almost all the one-on-one situations, and with that, the result couldn’t have been much better.
