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I don't think we have a thread yet and the competition started today. If there is a thread, let me know and i will nuke this one.

Lots of teams with different covid problems and that will influence the results big time. Special game of day one is my Croatia against France, real handball classic. Unfortunately I doubt we have a chance in this game. We are missing some very important players.

Russia and Spain won their games but much tougher than expected. Those should have been walk in the park and it was competitive all to the end.

Hey, always here to support the guys I know ;)

Last year was probably a record year for me in that I actually started following and betting on new sports. Not seriously, but enough to know a little more than I did before: American football, baseball, even MMA. Not sure I'll ever start following Handball, but it's popular where I live now and I have seen probably more handball teams than any other (apart from football) walking around in my neighbourhood (their jerseys say so).

I put money down on Croatia @5.32 (https://fairlay.com/market/croatia-vs-france-19/?referral=2130e697-c138-436a-a753-de8ca2436301) despite your advice. Classic match? Then the underdog must prevail!

Thanks for the vote of confidence but I will be very surprised if we lose with less than 5 goals difference. We will have big problems in attack unless something totally unexpected happens. Not gonna watch the game since I am going to play some football with my buddies. Maybe just some parts while driving :)

Well they actually did comeback before the break, just 2 goals down, and at 2 stages also came the same margin, but ended up 5-goal difference as you predicted. New things I learn about handball: also 2 halves, but 30 minutes each. Old thing I didn't need to learn: I can't throw jackshit with even my strong arm.

I might martingale on underdog on next bet. Dangerous paths should never be trodden with a small bankroll though.

I watched a bit of Croatia - France game and it's first time when I saw 3 players left on the pitch. 2 Croatia players got 2 min suspension, another was sent-off. I think it was decisive moment, until it Croatia were fighting well.
I'm happy that my country finally returned to EURO after 24 years break. We lost to Russia and bad start was main reason, we let them too far by 7 goals, but in the end we were close to make comeback. We had some bad luck, like hitting crossbar several times.
Main surprise so far - Netherlands win against host Hungary.

I watched parts of Croatia game and we played better than I expected but France had full control of the game all the time. They played as much as was needed and had a lot of reserve to use when needed.

The Croatian team is rejuvenated and does not have enough experience yet, and some key players were missing because of Covid.
However, I was positively surprised by these young players and I think that there is a lot of quality in the Croatian team and hope for a better future of Croatian handball.
The Croatian young men were not afraid of the French and played a great game.
The match against Serbia is crucial for Croatia and they have to win it if they want a good result in this competition and I believe they have the quality for that.
This whole championship is pretty weird to me because almost all the teams play without a lot of players because of Covid and they are pretty much weakened. I think it would have been much better if the organizers had postponed this competition until the situation with Covid normalized.

That gives advantage to national teams that have strong national leagues in my opinion. They simply have much more quality on the bench and bigger player pool to choose from. That should be France, Spain and Germany.

I watched a bit of Iceland and i am thinking they are back to fighting for top positions after couple of weaker years.

I'm really surprised about Russia win against Norway. Russia squad on paper isn't something special, but they were leading almost whole game.
For us championship ended just after 2 games. Yeah, we will paly against Norway, but we don't have chances to reach next round and it looks too difficult to beat Norway. Same like in first game, today we let Slovakia far early, almost made comeback in 2nd half, but in general, Lithuania didn't played good handball today.
Congrats @Trofo with Croatia win. Now you have good chance to reach next round from difficult group, considering that in last round you will paly with underdog Ukraine, while Serbia will face France.

Croatia really played a great game and deservedly beat Serbia.
Unfortunately, nothing in this group has been resolved yet and it could easily happen that Croatia does not go further in the competition.
I'm sure that Croatia will beat Ukraine in the last round, but if Serbia beats France, then Croatia will drop out of the competition.
If we had at least managed to beat Serbia with a bigger goal difference, we would have been in a much better situation and now we depend on France.

I am not worried, France will do their part of the job. They would be stupid to go easy in this game since you transfer points in Handball. It is nowhere the same situation if France goes trough with 4 points (if they win against Serbia) or with 2 points if they loose. Much better for them to play it seriously and than Serbia should have no chance.

Bump

As I predicted, it was easy job for both Croatia and France, second group here we come. Croatia now has 9 covid positive players so it is unrealistic to expect some kind of team cohesion and stellar handball. We had to call 6 new players for this next stage.

If you think that is bad, Germany has 12 positive players and they are considering forfeiting the competition and going home.

Measures are really funny this time around, when the ball gets out of the play to the stands it is immediately removed from the play and disinfected. On the other hand players are at the hotels mixed with tourists who don't care about masks and measures. Crazy world we live in :)

To summarize things which happened in group stage, probably only surprise that Slovenia got eliminated. In last EURO they achieved 4th place.
Now teams split in 2 groups with 6 teams and only 2 will go to semifinals.

Indeed, crazy world. Team which will have least covid cases probably will win :D.
Still bettter than Hockey junior World championship. Whole tournament got canceled because maybe 4 players of 3 teams got infected. And st the same time it was allowed to held wedding party in same hotel.

Easy money today if you followed info I posted yesterday:
Montenegro to win was @4.8
Spain to win was @1.7
In the end it was not even a contest in those 2 games. It is impossible for teams to play with so many new players and no time to work on game flow.

I still have one more game for tonight, Island +6.5. I watched Island and they were great so far and I could not believe they would offer me +6.5 handicap @1.85. I am a little afraid only because I did not see Denmark play yet and all the players are putting them up as first favorites for the tournament so I guess they are very good but still that is a big handy and I had to take it.

I was very surprised to see such big Iceland win against France yesterday. France were heavy favorites before the game, but they had no chance and lost 21:29.
Impressive end in Russia - Poland game. Poland scored goal with few seconds remaining and took a minimal lead. But Russia responded with buzzer-beater goal from middle of court and game ended 29:29. And no, Poland didn't played without goalkeeper on final Russia attack.
Now very interesting game between Spain and Norway started.

That Iceland game was the easiest money I made ever while betting. I expected a close game and they gave +6.5 handicap on Iceland as I wrote above. Good thing handball goes my way since AFCON is screwing me hard.

Norway gave a lesson to Spain today and I was especially impressed how good they were in defense. Sagosen who was their star player is playing very mediocre tournament and still they are looking superb. There will be big fight in this group between Spain, Norway and Sweden. Spain should be secure even though they lost today and Norway will have to beat Sweden for their chance. That game will end with 45 goals so play under while the lines are still high.

Bump.

Some new games today and couple of tips from my side.
Iceland ML against Croatia @1.45, Iceland was great this tournamnet, we have more than half of our first team with covid and nothing to play for. Good tip is also Iceland -2.5 @1.95 but that is much riskier
Why is Denmark such favorite against Netherlands that I can take -12.5 handicap on Netherlands @1.5? I guess that is due to past H2H but this is a new team and they played very well this tournament. I am taking it and hoping there is not some news where all main Dutch players have covid.

Have I stayed alone in this topic? This starts to feel like monologue and I am really sorry for that since handball championship is a good chance to take some money from the bookies. Only thing keeping me in the green while AFCON destroys my multi bets.

I hope somebody took under in this game. It really was free money. While we are on the subject, did you guys see how Norway lost? They had +4 few minutes before the end  ;D

@buwaytress
Hey man, I have one tip just for you today.
Denmark-France draw @8.5, to be played after Iceland wins their game. If Iceland does not win then this game is not important and it is better to play over or skip. If Iceland wins and they should France needs a point to pass trough, Denmark needs a point to pass as winner of the group. Could very easy finish as low scoring draw.

I did promise to try and follow this a bit but after the Croatia loss (as close/far as Trodo predicted) it slipped off my radar. As it turns out I have a bit of time today so I'm going to follow his pick for this one, AND actually watch the game thanks! Snuck in a pick at 9.14 (with daily price boost on Sportsbet).

BTW you said above Sweden Norway under? But official results show over 45... or am I reading it wrong? Yes, handball semi-virgin here. Nice call on Netherlands handicap, barely made the handicap though!

I said it will be a game of 45 goals, it finished with 47 or 48 I don't remember exactly but under/over line was set at 53.5 for 1.9 odds and lowest under you could have taken was 51.5 @2.2 unless there is somebody out there offering even more choices (maybe Pinnacle) which would again almost certainly be above the actual goals scored. So basically all under pre match bets you could have made would be winning ones, even all team under bets, or half time under bets.

My advice was simply to take all under markets whenever you find them.

@Trofo, I'm still here, just don't have enough time to post more frequently and I follow handball not enough to share deep insight.
Sweden yesterday made amazing comeback on final minutes, Norway were leading almost whole game.
About France - Denmark game, I don't like betting on draws, no matter which sports it is. And quite unexpected, Denmark have confident 5 goals lead at halftime, despite that this game have much bigger importance for France.
Most likely that Denmark - Sweden and Iceland - Spain will face in semifinals if Denmark won't waste their lead.

And now time for most depressing fact if you are France supporter......Denmark decided to play without their best players Hansen and Gisdol and they are still destroying them. To be fair France keepers are awful, so far they have 1 save combined. Bookies are getting skittish they are offering me more than my initial stake to cash out the draw :) I can already smell it, a goal for the draw with few seconds on the clock to spare.


Edit: So close, I feel bad for Iceland, they deserved it more than France this time around.

I actually gave up watching after seeing the first half lead, does look like in came close in the end, still worth the tip I'd say Trofo. But French newspapers also note the significance of the win, labelling their own team "Les Bracquers" which means "The Robbers" haha.

So this Iceland people. They know how to sports, don't they? Part-timers getting good runs at international football (though that's of course waned) and now also showing they're as good with their hands! ;)

Yep they are quite athletic but I still prefer my Croats :) We have a bigger pool than Iceland but much smaller then lots of nations. There is less than 4M of us and we are very good in almost all ball sports. We are in top of Handball and Waterpolo for years, can't complain about football as well there is a lot of bigger names out there with much poorer results. We were ok in Basketball as well but here something went in the wrong direction. We keep our own even in tennis, two times Davis cup winners.

My tip for the day over goals in Iceland - Norway match. Both teams love to play attacking handball with lots of goals and they are playing a 5th place match so stakes are not as high as in other games. Denmark will win against Spain but odds are small and handicaps are big. I have Denmark by 1-5 goals range @2.2 on my multi. Not touching France - Sweden but should be under probably.

We used to be very good in basketball, but we haven't achieved any results for more than 20 years and we don't even manage to qualify for world competitions.
Now I see a similar trend in handball.
We are no longer winning medals, and we are further and further away from the top of handball in the world.
France, Denmark, Spain have been at the top for years and constantly win medals because they have a clear plan and strategy, while in our country everything is improvisation and the domestic handball league is destroyed.
Trofo, what is your prediction, which team has the best chances for gold?

Hands down - Denmark, but the bookies know that and there is no value in that pick. Did not check it but i don't expect odds over 1.5, probably even lower. France has big problems with their game, Sweden is missing some important players and Spain plays like shit whole tournament.

This will be won by Denmark and it will not even be close fight.

^^

Country population for me is always not such a good measure of talent pool -- but the resources divided by the people. One football pitch for 11 people is better than 1 pitch for 110, let's put it that way. But I definitely agree with Icelandic people that they deserve to be proud if they don't even field full time professional athletes and can still beat pros. Sort of like Malaysian football in the 1970s. We didn't have a single professional or even semi-professional, so most of the national team actually played as volunteers and yet we still beat the crap out of better countries with better funding... ironically since the country professionalized and invested in more training and coaches, it's gone downhill. There are of course problems of corruption and a system that doesn't reward talent (the way we treat athletes is shocking until today, if you want an example, see how AFCON countries are treating their athletes) but anyway, I love to support teams from the Balkans too -- we say "small like a bird's eye chilli" (but hotter than the big chillies).

No bets for me today, I lost all interest after a tame defeat for my pick in AO semi. Good luck to you guys ;)

I think you are wrong about them here. They field only professional athletes and they have very good facilities for all the sports. It is just a question of finding enough row talent in a country that small. Iceland has population of under 400k while Brazil has over 2M registered football players. Much bigger pool to chose from and it is very important metric in my opinion.

Really? I don't remember exactly how many but I was pretty sure the World Cup team for Iceland had some part timers, butcher or sailor or dockworker or something. Maybe I'm wrong.

But we don't disagree about the facilities, which is what I think is important. They have very many stadiums and pitches and free facilities -- so every person can play easily with his mates after work. That's more important than anything else. Working facilities per capita.

My state as 2 million people but only 1 regulation pitch the entire land. You can have 100000 talented kids but if they can't even play on a proper pitch, or even go to school properly (my island also has 50% literacy rate) then those 100000 talents become 10 who can choose to develop their skills and go to proper school while earning enough to not have to work on their farm.

Meanwhile in Iceland and Netherlands where I know they offer citizenship to immigrants, they now don't even need to look locally as much. Ask our neighbours Singapore whose national team is full of people who weren't born there ;)

Anyway. Can argue till the cows come home, I'd still bet any day on a kid born in Iceland than in India to be a good athlete. Talent is not as important as hard work and technique (which can be taught!).

Betting on favorites today has no value at all. So, probably I'll skip this time and going just to watch games. Or maybe I'' go with under in both semifinals. Cost of mistake is huge, so maybe we won't see high scoing games.
Missed 5th place game tip, I see it went to vertime. Trofo, did your bet passed?

I think you have confused something. All players from their national football team is fully professional and playing on good level. I think it's simply impossibe to play at such level being only part-timer.  Either it's football or handball.
Though, probably not all players in EURO handball were fully pro. Lithuania played there and our national league isn't very strong and players aren't getting paid well, so maybe some of them have extra job or some business.

I think you're still good at basketball with so many talented players and strange that Croatia haven't achieved nothing significant for so long. And for me it's amazing how countries like Croatia or Serbia with such little population is so good at so many team sports.

My high stake bet just passed since I had over 53.5, my multi did not, I needed one more goal there. What is sad is that we had 50 goals in 51st minute and then nothing. To make things worse Iceland had a shot on empty goal in last seconds and missed.

I took both those unders as well. They will pass easy if games stay close.

agree on this one, but there are paradoxes everywhere
Serbia is probably top in Waterpolo last ten years (and always around the top), but we have under 10 Olympic pools in whole country, and most of them hardly work in Winter, not sure how we did it, but obviously it is not just up to facilities

but yeah, with proper facilities, there is an easier way to get results in team sports
for individual sports (such tennis for example) it is less a country success, since those players start training elsewhere very young, it is more a family (parents) road, than country, IMO

regarding Iceland, pretty sure as well that some of names that play for Iceland football clubs and national team are partly amateurs, or at least there were some stories covering that during World Cup, but those are not their most prominent names

What a crazy game between France and Sweden, 67 goals in this stage of competition is unheard of :) Both teams went for fast attacks and it worked for them. Then Palicka makes a save and you feel finally no goal and then he immediately scores. He entered the game after getting trough covid and scored 3 goals as goalkeeper in first 10 minutes on the pitch, what a comeback.

Can't believe I managed to finish this day on positive 0. I lost maybe 10 tickets but 2 winning ones were for high stake so it offset the looses nicely.

I'm curious, did anyone took Spain or Sweden wins? Both semifinals ended with underdog wins.
Indeed, France - Sweden was crazy game. As said, 67 goals in semifinal game is something that you won't see for long. And that Sweden goalkeeper save on last seconds which let them to win.
Spain - Denmark also wasn't bad game. Spain were leading almost whole 2nd half and achieved deserved win. And my under bet got passed.

It’s really hard to predict a winner in sports, isn’t it?
Personally, I thought Denmark would win this tournament and I even predicted that they would play France in the final and none of that happened  ;D
Is the handball map of the world changing right before our eyes and some other teams are taking over the handball top from Denmark and France?
Do you think that a large number of players infected due to Covid directly affected the final results and the order of the team in this tournament?

This was a really strange day and all games went in rather unexpected fashion.

I don't think that "handball map of the world is changing", after all it was all the usual suspects in the last 6. Maybe Germany or Croatia could have been there but those 2 were the 2 selections hardest hit with covid.

If i did not have money riding on it I would have been super happy with Denmark loosing. They were calculating and letting France turn them around in a previous games to get out of form Spain and it bit them back, as it should.

So what are your thoughts before 3rd place game and final?
I think that final between Spain and Sweden have no favorite, it's 50/50 game. Personally I would like to see Spain winning 3rd EURO title in a row. But I really liked Sweden in this tournament, so I won't mind to see them winning.
In 3rd place game Denmark is slightly favoured, but after what they did previously, I want France to win.

Everyone happy with Sweden win? Can't say they don't deserve it, the way they upset France. Final moment penalty made the difference in the end. 20 years since the last win apparently?

And Denmark, the favourite for gold, least took home a consolation medal.


A girl from my village (few hundred population) won silver in Olympics diving a few years ago, and that was a total mystery, even for us. We don't have any diving pools, she was practising in a regular swimming pool with theoretical knowledge of what to do in the real stadium, we aren't even known as swimmers, but of course, she hasn't been able to replicate her success SINCE getting a sporting scholarship to go train where there is a pool!

It was great final with dramatic ending. Interesting that France had timeout to make last attack, but it was complete failure. They left time to Sweden for response and earned 7m penalty on last second.
3rd place game was good too. Denmark simply dominated in overtime.

I guess you mean Spain here, France was in 3rd place playoff :)

I think Sweden deserved it, they had some covid and some injury problems but they coped with all of that and managed to get back some important players for the tournament finish. That last 7 meter goal from Sweden got me a win for ML and at the same time busted my Sweden under bet.

Sweden used to be a handball superpower, but they haven't won anything for a long time. I'm glad that they are returning to the paths of old glory. They absolutely deserved this triumph.
My biggest disappointment is Denmark. They were the main favorites of this tournament, Covid completely bypassed them, and in the end they almost ran out of medals.
As for my Croatia, again an old story about the change of generations and that the opportunity must be given to young players. And yes, eighth place is a success (and what we wanted to achieve before the tournament), judging by the coach’s statements  ::) :o