The DHB team wants a medal at the European Handball Championships. The tournament tree makes it extremely difficult for the German team to get there early on.
Six preliminary round groups with four teams, the best two per group move into one of two main round groups consisting of six teams, where the best two teams then reach the semi-finals. So far, so clear is the path that Alfred Gislason’s team has to take if they want to advance to the semi-finals.
Under certain circumstances you can afford two defeats
At the 2024 European Championships, in this mode you could even allow yourself two defeats under certain circumstances due to the balance of the field of participants. At the 2022 European Championships, you could only afford a maximum of one if you wanted to finish your main round group in one of the first two places.
Preliminary group A is a real awesome group
The German team plays in preliminary group A – with Spain, Austria and Serbia. At a European Championship, many preliminary round groups are traditionally strong anyway due to the absence of so-called “small” handball nations, but this Group A is already one of the toughest in the tournament.
They played a draw against Austria in the qualification, Spain and Serbia played high-class games in the qualification, one of which went to Spain and one to Serbia. You don’t need much imagination to imagine. that every game in this preliminary group will be close and competitive.
Denmark, France, Portugal – the main round will probably be tough
However, if the German team survives this difficult group and takes the points (or minus points) against the opponent who also reached the main round from Group A, the opponents in the main round group I could be the following: host and world champion Denmark, which has dominated world handball over the past few years, the fourth-placed Portugal, against whom Germany was eliminated at the last World Cup, the defending champion France and co-host Norway.
Now the DHB team is of course a very unpleasant lot for all of the mentioned (potential) high-profile opponents and is undoubtedly also a “big chunk” that needs to be removed, but from a German perspective the tournament tree is definitely not a bonsai, but rather a real sequoia tree.
But the motto of the tournament is, and this is reassuring, as always: If you want the title, you have to beat everyone anyway (or accept your defeat(s) against a favorable opponent).