Vektor

Christ, those Christmas lights are giving me a heart attack every time I break them.

So basically if everything goes as expected the teams at the Olympics will be... And... or or

OQT tournaments: Group 1 WCh 2nd - / Group 2 WCh 3rd - / Group 3 WCh 4th - /

Congratulations to anyone who saw this final coming.

Because Serbia v Hungary will decide who will be at the Olympics (there's no way Russia won't qualify from the group), and playing that match in Belgrade is... a bit unfortunate for us. I can't even remember the last time we beat Serbia in Belgrade in a team sport.

Well, that's even worse for us. I am sure the Hungarian Handball federation will try to convince the IHF to give us the OQT as I don't think there are any rules for this situation.

Netherlands is in the World Championship final! I guess we will play against Russia and Serbia in Russia for the Olympics, sounds like a lot of fun.

Sweden was 6th at the ECh, we were 7th. We needed Sweden to get a WCh OQT spot, because otherwise they would have taken the 2nd European OQT spot instead of us (Romania already got the first one with their ECh 4th place).

Everyone is a huge fan of Sweden right now in Hungary. I honestly didn't expect this results, specially not that they would win with such a huge margin. Well, I guess it's either Serbia or us at the Olympics, let's hope that our players will find their form in the next 3 months, the Champions League main round matches should help with that.

[hide] Knockout RoundDecember 13th - December 15th, 2019 4 Nations, Semifinals, Third Place Match and Final Semifinals Date & Time (GMT +9) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 December 13th 2019, h. 17:30 Norway 8 Spain December 13th 2019, h. 20:30 Russia 10 Netherlands [/hide]

Well, at least the Hungarian Federation can't make any excuses to keep Rasmussen. We are paying him a lot of money and our results are worse than ever despite the country spending an insane amount of money on handball, even compared to most of the other top nations. We need to make some changes because I am pretty sure Hungarian handball will completely miss the Olympics again for the second time in a row. (I mean, even now before that 7th place match the women's team has a better chance. The men's team has absolutely no chance whatsoever to qualify.)

OQT tournaments: Group 1 WCh 2nd - / / / WCh 7th - / Group 2 WCh 3rd - / / / WCh 6th - / Europe2 - / Group 3 WCh 4th - / / / WCh 5th - /

So after Denmark the other team that can probably say goodbye to their Olympic dreams is us. I can't see Sweden beating the better German team when they are already at the OQT and Germany needs that win to survive.

It looks like Sweden won't give us the OQT spot today. I don't feel good about that 7th place match.

Yeah, choosing the host based on more than one events would probably be better. Sadly, I think IHF will always prefer 4 teams tournaments over the ones that have 6 teams playing for one whole week, because they are simply cheaper.

btw, IHF needs to reform their qualification system somehow because it looks weird this way WCH 1st - direct qualification 2nd - basically direct qualification 3rd/4th - two Olympic qualification matches against European teams at HOME (playing at home is the only reason why this is better than finishing below) 5th/6th - two Olympic qualification matches against European teams 7th - basically direct qualification Obviously this wouldn't be the case if Europe wouldn't dominate the sport. Personally I think having two 6 teams tournaments would solve this quite easily. Group 1: WCh 2nd, WCh 5th, WCh 7th, Europe1, Asia2, America Group 2: WCh 3rd, WCh 4th, WCh 6th, Europe2, Asia1, Africa Equal number of European teams in each groups, looks a lot more fair than what we got now.

Not yet. If Montenegro beats Sweden, Sweden will have to defeat Serbia or Germany at the 7th place match to get us that OQT spot.

To anyone who wants to reach the Top6 to have a secured place at the OQT: the 7th place match is basically the same as an OQT. You either play two matches against European teams at the OQT, or you play one match against an European team for the 7th place here to qualify for Tokyo. So yeah, it might seem weird at first, but there really isn't much advantages to get 5th/6th today in the Main round over getting 7th place later.

Well, look at it this way, if you lose to Norway you will already have your Olympic qualification match here as the 7th place match, because 7th place basically means a direct qualification to Tokyo (there's no way the Europeans won't beat Argentina and Senegal at that tournament).

As I have said, AWFUL decision by EHF to not have a 7th place match at the ECh. And they are making the same mistake on the men's side.

Damn... that's it for Denmark at this WCh, and their Olympic dreams are over. Serbia is in the Top8.

btw, EHF really fucked things up by not having a 7th place game between Hungary and Denmark at the ECh. There really should have been a game to decide who gets the better spot now that the difference between the 7th and 8th place at the ECh can decide who gets the second European OQT spot.

Did Romania literally just gave up on playing, or what going on with that match against Japan?