Romania (ROU)

Romania changed their coach this autumn for the sixth time in the past seven years in the hope that the change will drive them back to the top of European handball once again.

With so many different styles and plenty of change, players have had little time to adapt, despite the main core of the team remaining more or same the less over the past years.

Florentin Pera was confirmed in September as the new coach for Romania’s women national team, replacing Adrian Vasile, whose contract was up in July. Pera, who recently finished his one-year stint at Russian side CSKA, had only two months to prepare for the EHF EURO 2022 and only three friendly games prior to the throw off, at the Carpathian Trophy, where Romania faced Austria, Serbia and Spain.

Pera has plenty of experience as a coach, having featured in the EHF Champions League Women, but this is his first time on the bench of a national team, which means less time to prepare the squad, help the team gel and impose his defence-first philosophy.

Four years ago, Romania finished fourth at the EHF EURO, after Cristina Neagu suffered a season-ending injury in a main round match against Hungary. It went downhill from that point on, as Romania lost their next two games and never returned to the top, finishing 12th and 13th at the 2019 and 2021 world championships and 12th at the EHF EURO 2020.

For the first time since 2018, Romania will have Cristina Neagu at 100 per cent, after she chose to miss the 2021 IHF Women’s World Championship, but the supporting cast is definitely not up to Neagu’s talent or level of performance. In the end, her form will be critical for Romania’s performance at the EHF EURO 2022, yet a group with France, the Netherlands and North Macedonia is a very tough one to navigate for a side that has been looking constantly for guidance.

Read more about the Romanian team HERE.