Main round berths at stake as preliminary round ends
The Men's EHF EURO 2024 preliminary round ends with several crucial matches in groups A, B and C on Tuesday.
Croatia’s 28:28 draw against Austria complicated matters in group B, with three teams still alive in the battle for the main round. All of them have their fate in their own hands, with Croatia needing a draw against Romania to progress, while Spain and Austria battle it out for the second spot.
We want to go home with at least a win, so we will give 100 per cent on Tuesday. We want to thank our fans who travelled to support us, we want to make ourselves proud as well by winning, even though we are now eliminated.
We will not play the last game for nothing, as when it starts, we will still have a chance. We will give everything, try to beat a good team of North Macedonia, but it is not in our hands now.
You can feel Germany has a lot of positive energy. The fact that they have a younger team takes off some pressure, and when you add the fact that they are playing at home makes a good mix. They are really in the zone at the moment.
We will have to show the best game in the last years to beat France. We know that we have good chances but we have to do our job. The game against France will be extremely important as we need the two points for the main round.
We should not underestimate Romania. They have an aggressive defence with good transition. Even though they lost both games so far, we need to be careful but we should not fear. We know we are better and I know my players will be up for the task.
We can dream of a good result against Croatia. We will try to play as we did against Spain at the start or even harder. We will follow what the coach is telling us and hopefully end with a win.
We know Austria is a big team, they have now good chances to go to the main round and it will be a good fight against them. We have to do good defence against them and have our goalkeepers on level. Our task is to concentrate the whole 60 minutes, it will be a big fight.
Spain is still Spain. They have their system, being at the top for many ears. they didn't have a good start to the tournament which can be a good thing for us. For us, the game against Spain is like the final and in matches like that we need to give everything we can.
It will be a game for one or two goals again. It will not be easy or finished in 20, 30 minutes. We need to focus 60 minutes because I think that one ball will decide who will win the match and that’s it. We know that.
We play every game like it’s the last game in our life. We will do our best to win in two days. Today, we mourn. Tomorrow, we forget about this game and prepare for Serbia, they are great team. They are an ascending team, to be more correct, to be precise. A great group. A great coach. One of the best goalkeepers in the world, if not the best.
Another difficult match. I think they are the favourites in all the matches that they play. Always, they are thinking on the medals, and this will be such a difficult match for us.
They are really big. They are physical. They are really compact. No doubt, they have really good defence and we will need to be at our absolute best to beat them.
