Future stars fighting for the title
Men's 20 have completed the Main Round in the European Championship that is staged in Turkey.
The teams kept their points from the Preliminary Round and so every squad had two matches left in the Main Round.
In both groups, the goal difference decided which team will make it to the semi-final and still has a chance to win the title.
Main Round
Group 1
In the first game of the Main Round, the Spanish team had no problems with the Portuguese. They easily defeated them (27:17).
However, the Spaniards lost against Croatia (24:25) after a thrilling game.
Thanks to the better goal difference, Spain win the group.
Croatia is the second team that qualifies for the semi-finals after a victory against Norway (31:23) and Spain.
Their defeat against Portugal in the Preliminary Round cost them the first rank.
Portugal was very close to the semi-finals too.
In the Main Round they beat Norway (30:25) but lost against the Spaniards.
In the end, their goal difference wasn't good enough to qualify for the next stage of the competition.
With 0 points, Norway is fourth ranked in Group M1.
Group 2
The Swedes got through the Preliminary Round without a defeat and in the first match of the Main Round, they won against the Swiss too (30:25).
In the second game, however, they got defeated by a strong German team (29:30) that had previously lost against Slovenia (25:31).
Slovenia won its second match against Switzerland too (29:27) but since they lost against Sweden in the Preliminary Round, all three teams ended up with 4 points.
The goal difference had to decide and Sweden (1st) and Slovenia (2nd) qualify for the semi-finals.
The German squad secures the third place in front of Switzerland.
Intermediate Round
Group I1
Russia had no problems to defeat their opponents in the Intermediate Round and are the winner of Group I1.
They won against Turkey (44:22) and the Czech Republic (38:30).
Poland secure the second place in this group with a victory against the Czech Republic (30:29) and a draw against the host, Turkey (32:32).
The Czech Republic and Turkey could not win a match in the Intermediate round and remain with their points from the preliminary Round.
The Czech are third in Group I1 and the fourth place goes to Turkey.
Group I2
After two close games against France (22:20) and Serbia (27:26), the Danes are the winner of Intermediate Group I2.
Iceland is second-ranked. They won against France (29:28) and Serbia (24:23) too.
But since Denmark won against Iceland in the Preliminary Round, the Scandinavian win the group.
Thanks to their victory against Serbia in the Preliminary Round (28:27), the French secure the third place.
Semi-finals and Cross-matches
The teams will now play semi-finals and cross-matches.
This means that the first of Group 1 will met the second of Group 2 and vice versa. The third of a group meets the fourth of the other group.
This applies to the teams coming from Main Round and for those coming from Intermediate Round.
The cross-matches and the semi-finals will be played on Friday 13th July.
Semi-finals
Spain vs. Sweden
Slovenia vs. Croatia
Cross-matches 5-8
Portugal vs. Switzerland
Germany vs. Norway
Cross-matches 9-12
Russia vs. Iceland
Denmark vs. Poland
Cross-matches 13-16
Czech Republic vs. Serbia
France vs. Turkey
You can find the full match schedule and the previous results here.
For more information, visit the official website.
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EHF