Summary: Netherlands upset Hungary in surprise of day 1
Follow the live blog throughout Thursday 13 January as the Men's EHF EURO 2022 begins in Hungary and Slovakia.
Now I will be going home, sorry, not home, but at the hotel, we don’t want to go home yet. I will go and try and analyse what Russia did against Lithuania. We need to be more focused and try to play better now, because this win gives us motivation.
This is a big win for Holland in one of the greatest handball halls in Europe, with 20,000 spectators in a tough game against Hungary — one of the strongest European handball nations. So of course we have to say this is a historic win for us.
If the first part of the half was all French, the second quarter was all in favour in Croatia, as they came back into the game thanks to a steady defence. If the Croatian side manage to keep this defensive level up after the break, we could well end up with a game much tighter than we thought.
Hungary are enjoying their strong moments with the crowd behind them but overall are not quite living up to expectations so far and find themselves on the back foot at the break in Budapest. Leading stars like goalkeeper Roland Mikler and line player Bence Bánhidi were substituted off by the 15-minute mark (though Bánhidi returned), highlighting the less-than-ideal form of the EURO co-hosts early on. Meanwhile, Luc Steins and Kay Smits are superb for the Netherlands — and the rest of the squad are also doing their job to complement the two key attackers.
This victory puts an end to 13 days of madness, nightmare, I don’t know how you want to call it. This win is for the guys who are still in our headquarters, ill. I hope this will help them recover and give them some happiness.
North Macedonia fans are loud and are giving an extra push to their team. That passion is shown on the bench too. Kiril Lazarov not only talks with a the team on court, but is explaining a lot to the youngsters on the bench on what he sees on the court. But Slovenia is not letting go easy. After a bad start, Joze Baznik became a nightmare for North Macedonia’s attack, with nine saves in the first half.
16:15
Teams are beginning to confirm their squads for tonight's matches. Here are Spain's and Russia's squads:
16:00
We're live on Twitch - head over for the pre-match show.
14:35
We're taking a little break from updates for an hour or so, but don't forget we'll be live on Twitch from 16:00 CET with Edu Tóth, for build-up to the matches. Click here for that show!
14:00
Four hours until the first matches throw off, which just about gives you time to listen to all three mammoth preview episodes of the (Un)informed Handball Hour podcast. The third installment, focusing on groups E and F, dropped earlier today.
13:40
Hungarian is a notoriously difficult language for non-native speakers. It is unrelated to many other European languages, although it does have connections to Finnish and Estonian.
So of course we challenged some players to have a go at saying "welcome" in Hungarian - "Üdvözöljük". Have a watch and see how they did.
13:00
It's Bobby Schagen's 32nd birthday! The Dutch wing will play in Budapest tonight - how many goals will he score as the Netherlands face Hungary?
12:40
Lithuania are making a comeback to the EHF EURO after 24 years tonight, facing Russia. They play in Košice and have been for a stroll - it's sunny, but cold!
12:15
It's important not to be too serious ahead of a big match. So Ukraine switched from handball to foot volley in their training session today. Some pretty good skills on display too.
12:00
This is cute. Hungary have received some good luck messages from schoolchildren before their home tournament throws off. Click through the gallery to see the pictures the kids have drawn for their heroes.
11:50
French line player Ludovic Fabregas will play his 100th match for France tonight, and what a game to hit that milestone on! The clash with Croatia promises to be the pick of day 1, with tons of history between the two sides. France have won eight of their 11 matches, including most recently in the qualification tournament for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games - putting them on the road to Olympic glory.
11:30
The Netherlands got their first look at the arena in Budapest yesterday, and seemed to be impressed.
11:15
Throughout the tournament we'll be bringing you exclusive live comment and behind-the-scenes content, starting at 16:00 CET today with the live show on Twitch. Take a look inside the fabulous Budapest Handball Arena, which will host Hungary vs Netherlands at 20:30 CET, plus main round group I and the final weekend matches.
10:40
Among the 24 teams competing at EHF EURO 2022 there are plenty of players making their EHF EURO debuts, and this morning we've profiled two of them.
Slovakian goalkeeper Teodor Paul was born in Košice and will step into the European championship arena there for the first time tonight, as the co-hosts take on Norway. He has spoken about facing the awesome power of Norwegian star Sander Sagosen and what it will mean to play in front of home fans.
In Szeged, Dragan Pechmalbec is ready for his major tournament debut. The Serb has chosen to play internationally for his mother's country, although he plays club handball for HBC Nantes in his father's home country of France. He talks about his first months with the Serbian team and their hopes in their opener against Ukraine.
