HANDBALL EHF EURO 2022 Discussion thread

[LTU_btc]

@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.

[Trofo]

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.

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.

[buwaytress]

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!

[Trofo]

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.

[Daniel91]

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?

[Trofo]

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.

[buwaytress]

^^

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

[Trofo]

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.

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.

[buwaytress]

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.

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!).

[LTU_btc]

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Trofo]

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?

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.

[casperBGD]

~snip

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.
 

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

[Trofo]

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.

[LTU_btc]

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.

[Daniel91]

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.

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 
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?

[Trofo]

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 
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.

[LTU_btc]

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.

[buwaytress]

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.

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

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!

[LTU_btc]

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.

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.

[Trofo]

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.

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.