Germany, Sweden and Spain stay perfect; Belgium write history
Round 3 of the Women's EHF EURO 2026 Qualifiers started with six matches played across four groups on Wednesday. Three of these encounters featured teams with a 100 per cent record in the competition, and it was Germany, Sweden and Spain who had the upper hand and extended their winning streaks.
Montenegro also had a chance to claim their third straight victory, but they lost in Iceland, while Belgium claimed a historic first Qualifiers win.
We showed a good performance and fought hard. We had to acknowledge the superiority of a more experienced opponent, who are, after all, the world runners-up. I would say they probably did not expect us to fight the way we did. In attack we perhaps made a few too many mistakes, which resulted in a relatively large goal difference. Nevertheless, we can still be satisfied with our performance.
It was not an easy game and we had to work hard for the result. Our play was not always fluent, but sometimes you also need to win matches like this. In the end, we achieved our goal, so I’m satisfied with the victory.
I am just so proud of Belgium and the team. The aim of a match is to have at least one more point than your opponent at the end. And we achieved that today by fighting really hard. And just showing that we definitely wanted those two points.
A tough match, we didn’t break down from pressure from the crowd but we didn’t handle our own pressure from knowing what this match means for us. We started well but had some lapses in our game, and we also started the second half that way, and all of this is due to our rotation since we have many injured players and played without a traditional centre back.
There was a great turnout in the stadium that gave us such extra energy when we entered the final part of the game. We were incredibly strong and determined defensively, which resulted in easy goals.
Our possession, especially in the first half, was not good enough, but we managed to stay in the game thanks to our defence. In the second half, we have to be more aggressive to finish the game.
I think we played a good and fighting game. We played great against a very experienced team that has very experienced and quality players in its ranks. I think we have a great future ahead of us and that we have enough room for progress.
I’m very pleased that we maintained a high intensity in our play. On top of that, we showed really strong aggression in our defence. We had to play 12 minutes short-handed, but I still think we held it together well. It was a bit of a surprise for us that they played a 5–1 defence. They made it somewhat difficult for us offensively in the first half. However, we were much more effective in the second.
I think we played a very good first half, defended well and managed to stop their play in the circle. The three two-minute penalties in the second half broke our backs. We had to play a lot of one-on-one defence. Spain is very strong in that area, which costs us a lot of energy.
I'm very happy that we got the two points and I'm very proud of the team. It wasn't easy for the team with the change of coach. The first 15 minutes were very bad for us. We threw away a lot of balls. But we got up, stuck to our system and believed in ourselves.
