Five teams on the hunt for final weekend tickets
The excitement is building up in Herning, as the end of the Men’s EHF EURO 2026 main round is just around the horizon. With only two rounds left to play, five teams are still mathematically able to progress to the semi-finals.
Leaders Germany are in the position to book their ticket if they beat Denmark and France do not beat Spain, the only team out of the race at the moment. Norway and Portugal are on two points, and the loser of the game between the two teams will see their hopes vanish.
They are a very tough team that play high-speed handball and they can put us in trouble. It’s hard to bounce back after the game we had yesterday against France. We will have to be more precise in everything we do, be better in defence, because we won’t be able to have another performance as the one we had yesterday in the first half.
For Portugal it will be easier to come with a lot of motivation after the game they had against France. We are prepared for everything. Mentally, we have to re-start again and look what was good and what was bad. Probably we needed a higher efficiency in attack.
Their play is really different from the other ones. They are able to change the systems, especially in defence. They set a lot of traps to their opponents, you always think that you have won but in fact, you have not. It’s the same offensively, you always think that you have caught them and they always manage to release the ball. They are an upsetting team to play. Someone is always running, someone is always offering a solution coming out of the blue.
This is one of the best teams in the history of handball. To beat them, a lot of things have to come together. The potential is there, but we have to perform differently than in the last two encounters. We’ll see whether the atmosphere in the arena is an advantage or a disadvantage for the Danes.
We had a lot of problems with Germany in the EURO 2024 semi-final in Cologne. Recently, the results have been clearer than the actual course of the games. We have great respect for Germany because they know exactly what Simon Pytlick and I – and all the others as well – are doing.
