Summary: Norway in semi-finals; Denmark and Netherlands both in contention
The Women's EHF EURO 2024 main round returned to Vienna on Monday. Norway booked their semi-final ticket, while Denmark and the Netherlands set up a crucial final match on Wednesday.
It's the best feeling. We know that we had two chances to get to the semi-final, and the only thing we wanted was to make it tonight. And we did. Now we can only look forward to the final weekend. It's very exciting to see who we're going to meet there.
22:40
This is what group II looks like now, before the final match-day on Wednesday. Make sure you tune in for the 18:00 CET game as that is going to be absolutely thrilling, when Denmark and the Netherlands go head-to-head.
22:35
And here are the highlights from Denmark vs Slovenia to enjoy.
22:18
That last game was a cracker - check out the match reviews below!
The results set up an exciting final night of main round matches on Wednesday, with Denmark and the Netherlands going head-to-head for the last semi-final spot. Whoever comes out on top will join France, Hungary and Norway in the last four teams in medal contention, while the loser will play for fifth place.
15:10
The Netherlands and Switzerland have some outstanding young players, some of whom could well be in the running for the inaugural Best Young Player award in the All-star Team, presented by Lidl. One who's stood out is Dutch line player Romee Maarschalkerweerd, who has shone in the defence but also played a fair bit in attack. Look out for her when they throw off in 20 minutes' time in Vienna
14:55
The stat of the day looks at the last match of the evening, Denmark vs Slovenia. Without seven-metre penalty shots, Denmark have the best shooting percentage in the main round at 68.2 per cent. However, their opponents today, Slovenia, rank third with 63.1 per cent, so it could be a challenging day for the two teams’ goalkeepers.
14:35
One of Norway’s most experienced and important players is wing Camilla Herrem, who has been having a great tournament and the other day scored her 150th EHF EURO goal. She talked yesterday about how Norway have developed through the tournament and what we might see in their game against Germany later on today.
“I think we had a lot of progress from the beginning to now. We had a lot of talking about our defence — that we need to be better. We need to help each other more. You can see we're starting to get better against Denmark and small adjustments and then against Netherlands yesterday.
“I think we were much better than the day before. We used our running skills more, because we're talking about the Netherlands — they like to run and run and run. I also said to our team that we don't have to forget that we are running as well. We have to run in the entire game, because that's something we’re used to and that's something that can be tiring for the opponents.
“We've been taking steps all the way from Innsbruck till now. I'm just very proud of the team because we lost some key players after the Olympics, so we didn't quite know where we were. But the way we've been handling ourselves on the field and the way that other players have been stepping into their role, I'm very, very proud.”
14:10
Today’s Women in Handball focus on the EHF Activities Instagram page recognises the eight female referee pairs whistling at this tournament. Let’s hope they’re inspiring some young female players to get involved in officiating in the future!
You can find out which referees are nominated for which matches here.
13:45
On the sidelines of the Women’s EHF EURO, a group of 22 coaches finished the EHF Master Coach course this week. This year’s cohort undertook an intensive programme of work which culminated in presenting a thesis to the panel of examiners, after spending several days fine-tuning their knowledge of handball in theoretical and practical sessions in Vienna. Read more about what the course involved here.
