The win took Denmark’s points tally to four, where they sit alongside Norway and Slovenia, after the latter defeated Croatia earlier in the evening. Hungary’s chances of progressing to the semi-finals are now slim to none, as they stay on zero points at the bottom of the group and will need many other matches to end a certain way, aside from their own, to make it through.
GROUP I
Hungary vs Denmark 27:29 (12:14)
- Hungary were in front with six minutes to go, but goals from Denmark’s backs Mie Højlund, Anne Mette Hansen and Louise Burgaard saw the Scandinavian side grab the upper hand in the final stages
- after the match was always level or in Denmark’s favour — aside from the 1:0 to start the game — Hungary took the lead for the first time with 14 minutes to go, 22:21. From there it was a nail-biting race to the last minutes
- Denmark created the first two-goal gap in the last four minutes of the first half and held the distance to the break. Hungary had not led at half-time in any match at the EHF EURO 2022 before the encounter against Denmark, and the pattern continued — three times now they have trailed by two goals (also against Switzerland and Norway), and once they were three behind (versus Croatia)
- at 8:8 in the 16th minute, eight different players from Denmark had scored, reflecting the depth in the Scandinavian side
- the player of the match award went to right back Katrin Klujber, who netted eight goals for Hungary
Wins for group B teams, who now look for revenge
The opening night of the main round in Ljubljana saw both matches end in favour of teams that progressed from group B in Celje, as Denmark followed Slovenia in securing their third win of the EURO. Group B winners Sweden will start their main round campaign on Saturday against group A winners Norway, while Denmark hope to back up their first victory in Ljubljana with another, against Croatia.
Saturday will be a night of rematches of bronze-medal games at recent major championships, as Denmark and Croatia met in the 3/4 game at the EHF EURO 2020 and Sweden played Norway in the same match at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Both those bronze-medal matches ended in favour of the EHF EURO 2022 group A sides: Croatia and Norway.
It was not always a well played win but this win means so much to us. In defence we were not hard enough. We had a lot of good attacks but we did not finish them good enough.
