Road to Denmark 2015 starts for Italy and FYR Macedonia

The Qualification Europe for the Women’s World Championship 2015 in Denmark throws off this week with just two teams in action.

FYR Macedonia welcome Italy in Skopje on Thursday (9 October, 17:45 hrs) for their Group 3 qualifier, before they make the trip to the Italian city of Follonica for the return match on Sunday (12 October, 18:30 hrs). A live ticker is available for both matches.

For Italy, coaches Marco Trespidi and Neven Hrupec have nominated 16 players, relying heavily on players of Esercito-FIGH Futura Roma.

10 of 16 women nominated play for the team which was set up by the Italian Handball Federation itself in cooperation with the nation’s Olympic Committee some years ago with the long-term goal of qualifying for major international tournaments.

The only time to date that Italy qualified for a Women’s World Championship was in 2001 when they hosted the event. They finished 16th in the end.

Two years ago in the Qualification Europe for the World Championship 2013 Italy ranked third in Group 3 and did not qualify for the play-offs.

On the other side of the court, FYR Macedonia are a much more regular guest at international events.

This year they have to go through the hardship of the Qualification Europe as they failed to qualify for the Women’s EHF EURO 2014 which would have guaranteed a place in the play-offs.

Similar to Trespidi and Hrupec, Macedonian head coach Risto Magdinchev relies in particular on one group of players, with nine of the 19 players he nominated for the final preparation phase for the matches against Italy taking to the court for WHC Metalurg.

Qualification information

It is only Italy and FYR Macedonia that take to court as the teams in Groups 1, 2 and 4 all opted for a tournament format instead of home and away matches.

These tournaments will be played in the last week of November and the first week of December.

What applies for all groups is that only the eventually first ranked team from each group qualifies for play-offs next June at which nine of the 10 places available to European teams at the final tournament will be decided.

The tenth place is awarded to the winner of the Women’s EHF EURO 2014 – or to the second ranked team in case Denmark, who are automatically qualified as they are the organisers of the World Championship, top the podium at the tournament in Hungary and Croatia.

The EHF Media and Communications Department has published a media information for the Qualification Europe. It is available in the media guide section of eurohandball.com