Three right wings bringing experience and talent to the court
The three right wings featuring here are fast, technical skilled and experienced wingers who will all be crucial to their respective nations’ chances of success in France.
Jovanka Radicevic, Montenegro
The wings will be among the keys to success for Montenegro at this championship.
Majda Mehmedovic was picked out as a left wing to look out for, and her teammate from CSM Bucuresti, Jovanka Radicevic, is just as important on the opposite wing.
At 32 years of age and with many years at the top level of handball, Radicevic definitely does not suffer from lack of experience, and she has made use of that to fine tune her play over the years.
Wings do not necessarily have to be as tall as backcourt players or line players, and Radicevic’s 1.69m height is actually fine for a wing.
She possesses all the qualities a modern wing needs to possess. She is reliable from her wing position, where she makes good use of the passes she gets from her backcourt players, and she has a fine variation of shots in her repertoire.
Due to her speed and her eye for the development of the game, she is also efficient on fast breaks, and Montenegro’s opponents will be well advised to be particularly careful not to lose the ball anywhere near her side of the court. That may soon result in the ball ending in their own net, transported down there by Radicevic.
Furthermore, her enormous spirit is a constant inspiration to her teammates.
Debbie Bont, Netherlands
With 144 international caps, Debbie Bont is the player with the second highest number of appearances in the orange jersey. She has used her long international experience to become a key player in the strong Dutch team, where she has played an important part in the numerous triumphs in recent years.
Playing for top European clubs like FC Midtjylland, HC Leipzig and now Kobenhavn Handball, she has also gained plenty of experience at international club level. That has come in useful for the Dutch national squad, where she is always one of those players who keep up the spirit in the team.
Due to injury in the Kobenhavn team, she has been alone on the right wing for the Danish champions during the autumn. This has earned her further valuable Champions League experience, from which she and the Dutch national team will undoubtedly also benefit in France.
She is an effective right wing and also good at moving in from her position – she has even been known to take a shot from the distance every now and then.
She is reliable in defence and good on the fast breaks, and all these qualities in combination make her the complete wing she is.
She will be celebrating her 28th birthday when the Netherlands play their second main round match, assuming they progress to that stage. The ideal present is obvious.
Trine Ostergaard, Denmark
Keen, fast and effective.
Those are the three adjectives which leap to mind when talking about the obvious first choice for the right-wing position in the Danish team.
She has plenty of big-match experience at club level too - first for FC Midtjylland, who she represented for nine years, and, since last summer, for Odense HC.
She has been able to transfer this experience to the national team, where 91 international matches have also given her a good deal of experience.
For several major championships, she has been alone on the right wing, and that has not bothered her or made her feel any extra pressure at all.
This time, she will get talented Mathilde Hylleberg from TTH Holstebro as her backup, but there is no doubt that Ostergaard will take the vast majority of the minutes on court in France, while Hylleberg will get the opportunity to learn from one of the best.
She is short, only 1.65m, but she is fast, and with her speed and her technically refined shots from even very difficult angles, she is one of the greatest assets for national coach Klavs Bruun Jørgensen’s outfit.
Ostergaard has said that playing in the national team increases her self-confidence. Watching her on court makes one think that she has plenty of that already.
TEXT:
Peter Bruun/jh