Hungary (HUN)

Always a team with huge ambitions, Hungary have failed to live up to their billing at the Women’s EHF EURO over the past decade, failing to break into the semi-finals since winning the bronze medal in 2012. With a new coach and a young team, hungry for performance, they will seek redemption at the EHF EURO 2022, with a lot riding on a successful campaign.

Hungary’s junior team won the World Championship in 2018 and finished second in 2022. They also posted back-to-back wins at the W19 EHF EURO in 2019 and 2021. The youth team has not lost a game at the W17 EHF EURO for five years, winning gold in 2019 and 2021. But Hungary’s senior team has finished sixth at the EHF EURO 2014, 12th in 2016, seventh in 2018 and 10th in 2020.

Something is happening during the transition from the youth and junior teams to the big league and nobody seems to pinpoint the exact cause or what happens during this process. After the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Gábor Elek was replaced by Vladimir Golovin on Hungary’s bench, as the coach who won gold at the 2018 IHF Women’s Junior World Championship and the W19 EHF EURO 2019 got the keys to the senior team.

The first tournament for Golovin, the 2021 World Championship, ended on the 10th place, the best result in the competition since 2013. Now, the stakes are high and the second year of his stint must bring another improvement, with a hungry team, ready to fight for a medal.

Many of these players have already featured in the EHF Champions League or the EHF European League, therefore it is not a question of experience, rather than the chemistry of the squad. But with only two players featuring outside of Hungary at club level – goalkeeper Melinda Szikora at SG BBM Bietigheim and left back Noémi Háfrá at Odense Håndbold – the players should not have issues, especially as plenty of them have already played together at one level or another.

Read more about the Hungarian team HERE.