Men’s national handball for the double in Belgium

The men’s national handball team completed its preparations on Tuesday at the stadium where Wednesday’s match against Belgium will be held for the third matchday of the EURO 2024 qualifiers.

This particular stadium brings back happy memories for the representative group, since 15 months ago they won 29-27 in the premiere of the 2023 World Cup qualifiers.

The federal coach, Giorgos Zaravinas, stated at the OHE press office: “It is one of the few matches in which tactics will not play as much a role as our mentality and philosophy. These are two completely different matches compared to last year’s matches. We have momentum, optimism and self-belief, but all these we have to walk step by step during the race.

We need to stay focused on the fundamentals of our team, such as defense and counter-attacks. If we manage all this, I believe we will have a good result”.

For the absence of Tziras and the addition of Savva: “It is normal for national teams to have additions and subtractions. Tziras is a key player in our plans but, due to injury, he could not be with us. From then on, Savva’s presence makes us happy, first of all, because he wanted it very much himself.

You realize, however, that it is not possible to change many things with a couple of days of training. The team will rely on basic elements that have worked all this time and have acquired a significant homogeneity”.

The 17th of the National Team

At 11:00 the technical meeting of the match is scheduled, in which the 16 teams of the two teams will be announced.

The 17 of Greece are: Bukovinas, Papatonopoulos, Arabatzis, Bayios, Papavasilis, Kostakidis, Mylonas, Savvas, Boskos, Toskas, Passias, Papazoglou, Mallios, Kandylas, Michaelidis, Papadionisiou, Liapis

Tradition favors Greece

The two teams are familiar, since they have met several times in recent years. This also happened in the qualifiers for the 2023 World Championship, with the National team having two away victories 29-27 in 2021 and at the beginning of 2022 in Heraklion in an imposing manner (42-24).

Tonight will be the 11th game between the two teams. Our national team has 6 wins against 3 of the Belgians, while one match ended in a draw. In Belgium, the results are split with two wins for each team and one draw.

In fact, in Hasselt, where tonight’s match is being held, Greece has two wins (in 2021 with 29-27 and in 2000 with 23-17) and one loss with 30-25 in 2015.

Greece and Belgium were drawn in the same group for the EURO 2022 qualifiers, however, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Belgians withdrew from the event.

2023 World Cup Qualifiers:

3/11/2021 Belgium- Greece 27-29 (Hasselt)

13/1/2022 Greece- Belgium 42-24

World Qualifiers 2019:

4/1/2018 Belgium- Greece 33-28 (Leuven)

7/1/2018 Greece- Belgium 24-26

EURO 2018 qualifiers:

10/6/2015 Belgium- Greece 30-25 (Hasselt)

14/6/2015 Greece- Belgium 29-25

2015 World Qualifiers:

3/11/2013 Greece- Belgium 31-25

11/1/2014 Belgium- Greece 30-30 (Herstal)

2001 World Qualifiers:

19/1/2000 Greece- Belgium 26-21

22/1/2000 Belgium- Greece 17-23 (Hasselt)

5th group

Score (in 2 matches):

1. Croatia 4

2. Greece 2

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3. Netherlands 2

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4. Belgium 0