How Montenegro’s changed playing style has maintained success

After leaving the EHF EURO 2022 two years ago with the bronze medal, Montenegro made it to the main round this year with three victories. After just three games, the data is of course not very meaningful yet, but a few initial trends, especially what has changed in the playing style under new head coach Suzana Lazovic compared to her predecessor Bojana Popovic, can still be seen.

Improved defence?

What immediately catches the eye is the change in speed of the game. Two years ago, under Popovic, Montenegro averaged 54.5 possessions per game over the entire tournament and 54.7 after the preliminary round which was right around the average of the tournament. This year they rank 20th with 52.3. The only team to make it to the main round with even slower games is Slovenia (50.7).

The fact that they are the team with the third-lowest number of kilometres run (29.4km per game) is therefore not because the Montenegrin players are lazy, but rather because their games have relatively few possessions. There is less running up and down the court compared to the other teams, which is from where the majority of the kilometres run comes from.

In attack, their games are, compared to all teams, fairly average with 32.3 seconds per possession, but the other five group winners have significantly faster possessions. At 36.6 seconds, however, Montenegro force the fourth-longest opponent possessions. As many as 14.0 per cent of their opponents' attacks end after 60 seconds or more. No other team has a value anywhere near as high.

Two years ago, these numbers were almost identical in attack and defence after the preliminary round, at 33.2 and 32.7 seconds respectively. Over the entire tournament, Montenegro were the fifth slowest team in attack with 35.9 seconds in attack and 28.8 seconds in defence and allowed the fourth-fastest opponent attacks.

While attacking time does not necessarily correlate with quality, the duration of opponents' attacks is often an indicator of good or poor defence, as good defences force their opponents into long attacks.

In fact, defence was also a bit of a problem for Montenegro two years ago. While their attack was the fourth best of the tournament with opponent adjusted 25.7 goals per 50 possessions, defensively they just ranked 11th at the end of EHF EURO 2022 with 25.5 goals conceded per 50 possessions adjusted to the quality of their opponents. (More on how that’s calculated here.)

Where Montenegro are still very similar, however, is the general style of play. With 14.4 passes per 35 seconds of possession, they have the second-lowest value here after Germany (also 14.4). Two years ago, they also had the second lowest value with 14.2. At that time behind Norway, also with 14.2. Passes per 35 seconds of possession is an indicator in the general style of play whether a team prefers to run many isolations (lower number) or rather play more direct and traditional (higher number).

Two different halves

What is also currently very noticeable is the difference between the first and second half. No team has better defensive numbers in the first half than Montenegro, as they concede only 8.0 goals per 25 possessions. Offensively, they rank tenth with 12.8 goals per 25 possessions, yet they score 4.8 more goals than they concede.

In the second half the offensive number stays almost the same at 12.3 but increases in defence to 12.2. Accordingly, the difference in the scoring second half is just 0.1.

Here, 25 possessions are used instead of the usual 50 because the only first and second halves are looked. Using these statistics that are adjusted for possessions played is significantly more meaningful than just the raw number of goals (conceded) because it makes the teams actually comparable since the raw number of goals is not only influenced by efficiency, but also by the number of possessions (whether a team and their opponents play rather fast or slow).

Since a game has roughly 50 possessions on average (54.2 currently at EHF EURO 2023) 50 possessions is taken to reflect those of a whole game and 25 for one half.

So, in the first half Montenegro score 4.7 goals per 25 possessions more than in the second half. Only Switzerland and Iceland have slightly higher numbers than Lazovic’s team here. But the good first half meant that there was no reason to give everything in the second half. Instead, it made sense to shift down a gear and take it a bit easier in the second half to rest as much as possible for the tough games in the main round.

Individual class and many seven-metre penalties

While the available metrics make it difficult to evaluate defensive performance apart from the goalkeepers, it is a different story in the offense. The focal point of the Montenegrin attack is Djurdina Jaukovic. The 27-year-old left back has already scored 23 goals (7.7 per game), putting her in second place on the scoring charts behind Slovenia’s Tjaša Stanko (24 goals, eight per game).

Ten of Jaukovic’s goals came from seven-metre penalty throws, where she was successful on all 10 attempts. This makes her the only player with more than six penalty shot attempts who is yet to miss a shot.

She is also strongly supported by her team-mates in scoring these goals; only Serbia (6.4) have more seven-metre penalties per 50 possessions than Montenegro (6.1). This was already one of Jaukovic’s great strengths two years ago.

Montenegro were also the second-best team back then with 4.5 seven-metre penalties per 50 possessions. This year, Tatjana Brnovic in particular is practically unstoppable without fouling, as she alone received 3.3 seven-metre penalty throws, which is clearly the most of the competition.

Despite the many seven-metre penalties, Jaukovic is still the focal point of her team's attack from open play. Her offensive responsibility (share of field shots, received penalty throws and turnovers on all of her team) is with 20.9 per cent by far the highest of her team and the eight-highest of the competition.

So, on one hand, much of Montenegro's continued success will therefore depend on whether they can continue to play to their strengths in attack, such as the many seven-meter penalties they have taken and the qualities of Jauković. On the other hand, whether they have really improved in defence under Lazovic and can also prove this against their top opponents in the main round is at least equally important.

More from data analyst Julian Rux can be found at Handballytics.de. There you can read his latest articles, in which he analyses all kinds of handball topics from new, data-based perspectives. You can also find him on Instagram, Bluesky, Threads and WhatsApp channels.

Photos © EHF/kolektiff