The luck of the draw is at their hands
When the EHF EURO 2016 Final Tournament Draw takes place in Krakow on Friday (14:30 hrs, live stream on ehf-euro.com), there will be four players from four participating nations drawing the balls with the teams' names out of the pots.
The teams from Pot 1 (France, Denmark*, Spain, Croatia*) will be drawn by Danish centre back Mads Mensah Larsen.
The 23-year-old was part of the team that won silver at the EHF EURO 2014. He has been selected 47 times for the Danish national team.
On club level he plays for Rhein-Neckar Löwen with which reached the Last 16 in the VELUX EHF Champions League this season and came second in the German Bundesliga.
The teams from Pot 2 (Iceland, Poland*, Sweden, Hungary) will be drawn by Polish goalkeeper Slawomir Szmal (pictured left).
The 36-year-old has been a true stalwart of the Polish national team and was between the posts when the team won silver at the World Championship 2007 as well as bronze at the 2009 and 2015 events.
Szmal plays for Vive Tauron Kielce with which he came third at the 2015 VELUX EHF FINAL4.
Cupic to play sixth EHF EURO
The teams from Pot 3 (Russia, FYR Macedonia, Germany*, Belarus) will be drawn by German goalkeeper Andreas Wolff.
It is less than a year ago that Wolff made his debut for the German national team. The first time he was part of the squad was in September last year when he took the court in a friendly match against Switzerland. Since then he has been selected 12 times.
In the German Bundesliga he plays for HSG Wetzlar.
The teams from Pot 4 (Serbia, Norway, Slovenia, Montenegro) will be drawn by Croatian right wing Ivan Cupic.
The EHF EURO 2016 will already be the sixth European Championship for the Croatian international. His impressive collection of medals include silver at the EHF EURO 2008 and 2010 and silver again at the World Championship 2009. He furthermore came third with Croatia at the EHF EURO 2012, the 2012 Olympic Games and the World Championship 2013.
17 days of top handball
*Poland, Denmark, Germany, and Spain have already been placed by the organisers into one group, so that the preliminary round groups ahead look like this:
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Group A |
Group B |
Group C |
Group D |
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Krakow |
Katowice |
Wroclaw |
Gdansk |
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Croatia |
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Denmark |
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Poland |
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Germany |
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The EHF EURO 2016 takes place from 15 to 31 January 2016. The preliminary round takes place in Krakow, Katowice, Wroclaw and Gdansk.
The main round will be played in Krakow and Wroclaw, and the semi-finals and the final in Krakow only.
The draw procedure can be downloaded here.
TEXT:
EHF / ts