Sports Weekend
News from women's handball and football
Florin Orban, 19.06.2020, 13:45
On Thursday, Vienna hosted the drawing of the Euro 2020 European Womens Handball Championship groups. The matches are scheduled to take place in December in Norway and Denmark.
Romanias team is playing in Group D, alongside Norway, Germany and Poland. Group D matches will be played in Trondheim, Norway, and so will Group C matches, with the defending world champions Netherlands, and Hungary, Serbia and Croatia as protagonists.
Groups A and B matches will take place in Denmark. The defending European champions, France, will play in Group A, in Herning, against Denmark, Montenegro and Slovenia. Olympic champions Russia are the stars in Group B, scheduled to play in Frederikshavn, opposite Sweden, Spain and the Czech Republic.
The top 3 teams in each group will move forward into the main groups. Romanias womens handball team qualified straight into the EHF EURO 2020 after the remaining matches were cancelled by the Executive Committee of the European Handball Federation in March, over the coronavirus pandemic.
Four legs in the qualifying series were outstanding at that point, and Romania had won 2 matches out of 2, in a group that also included Poland, Ukraine and the Faroe Islands. In the previous edition of the European Championship, held in 2018, Romania came out 4th. In the history of the competition, Romania only won one medal, a bronze one, in 2010, an edition hosted once again by Norway and Denmark.
We move on to football now. This week saw the 4th round of the Romanian League One playouts. On Tuesday, FC Voluntari won 2-1 away from home against Sepsi Sfântu Gheorghe. On Wednesday, in Ploiesti, Chindia Târgoviște also won 2-1 against Viitorul Constanța. On Thursday, Academica Clinceni outperformed Poli Iași, 1-0 away from home. The match pitting FC Hermannstadt against Dinamo will be rescheduled.
The 4th round of the playoffs will take place over the weekend. One match on Friday, Universitatea Craiova vs Astra Giurgiu. On Saturday FC Botoșani takes on CFR Cluj, while on Sunday in Bucharest FCSB plays against Gaz Metan Mediaș.
Top of the current standings are Cluj, with 33 points, followed by FCSB and Craiova, with 26 points each.
(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)