Ukraine and Germany to battle it out in Heidelberg
Round 5 of the Women’s EHF EURO 2024 Qualifiers will conclude with seven matches on Thursday 4 April, and the German town of Heidelberg will host both games in group 2. Playing against Germany, Ukraine will be technically a home side in the Highlight Match, with the winner of this encounter booking a ticket to the final tournament. Meanwhile, Israel face Slovakia.
We have learned a lot from our previous matches. We need to trust in our own strengths, play our teammates into situations where they are at their best. We have to reduce the technical errors and get more counter attacks. Attitude, that Finnish Sisu!
Our team in Latvia will be younger than usual. Our young players are talented. We had the first training session with them on Monday. The upcoming challenge is a great opportunity for them. I believe that they will play the match as expected.
The strongest point of our opponents are the back players, who take a lot of actions and I think that's what we should focus on the most. We would like to build a high advantage already in the first match, but we cannot underestimate our opponents.
The EHF EURO Cup has been an enjoyable tournament to participate with the national team. We have made a lot of experiences from the previous matches. I really look forward to face Hungary which is a very good team. I think we will see a tough opponent in this match.
We put maximum effort into these days, since we play against Norway, the reigning European champion, and then the Olympic Qualifiers come, so this is a truly important time for us.