Romania to play in Group B at the 2024 European Women's Handball Championship

Romania's national team will play in Group B at Debrecen in the 2024 European Women's Handball Championship alongside the teams from Montenegro, the Czech Republic, and Serbia, according to the draw held in Vienna.

The Romanian team was part of the second pot and was the first drawn.

Romania qualified undefeated for the final tournament, besting Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, and Croatia in the preliminary group stage. As such, at the end of the stage, they had a maximum of 12 points, according to News.ro.

The 2024 edition of the European Championship will be the first with 24 teams at the start and will be hosted by Austria, Hungary, and Switzerland, between November 28 and December 15. The groups are as follows:

A: Sweden, Hungary, Turkey, North Macedonia;

B: Montenegro, Romania, Czech Republic, Serbia;

C: France, Spain, Portugal, Poland;

D: Denmark, Switzerland, Faroe Islands, Croatia;

E: Norway, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia;

F: Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, Iceland.

The matches will take place in the cities of Debrecen, Basel, and Innsbruck, with the Austrian capital hosting the final phases. The top two teams in each preliminary group will qualify for the main groups.

In the last two editions of the European Championship, Romania finished 12th, after being in 4th place in 2018. The best performance of the national team was in 2010 when they won the bronze medal.

This will be the first European Championship without captain Cristina Neagu in the squad, the all-time top scorer of the competition (303 goals), as the handball player decided to end her national team career after the 2023 World Championship.

The current European trophy holder is Norway.

(Photo source: FRH - Federația Română de Handbal on Facebook)