First teams enter road to Women's World Championship 2017#

While there are only 10 days left until the first matches of the Women's EHF EURO 2016 throw off, the first teams already embark on their journey towards the Women's World Championship 2017 in Germany.

Overall there are four qualification groups in this first phase, two of them, Groups 1 and 4, will be played from Friday to Sunday this week, the other two groups, 2 and 3, will be played from 2 to 4 December.

The first two teams from Groups 1 to 3 and the top ranked team from Group 4 qualify for the play-offs which will be played in June next year.

In Group 1, hosted by Slovakia, the hosts face Ukraine, Lithuania and Greece. Italy are the hosts of Group 4, they face Portugal and Israel.

For all matches the EHF live ticker will be available.

In Group 2, which will be played in Minsk, hosts Belarus meet Turkey, Switzerland and Kosovo.

Group 3 is hosted by Faroe Islands and consists of Austria, FYR Macedonia, Iceland and - for obvious reasons - Faroe Islands.