Four players assist in Women’s EHF EURO 2020 Qualifiers draw

Usually, it is their role to score goals and decide matches. However, on Thursday the power to decide for right wing Trine Ostergaard from Denmark, line player Linn Blohm from Sweden, left wing Sanna Solberg from Norway and the Netherlands’ right wing Debbie Bont will be off court.

The four players have been chosen to assist in the Women’s EHF EURO 2020 Qualifiers Draw which will take place on 4 April 2019 in Copenhage (live on EHF EURO Facebook and Youtube).

Together they combine a wealth of experience and success on national team level with Solberg, among other achievements, being a European (2014, 2016) and world champion (2015). Linn Blohm was part of Sweden’s squad that won bronze at EHF EURO 2014; Ostergaard won bronze with Denmark at the World Championship 2013 and Debbie Bont won silver at EHF EURO 2016 as well as bronze at the World Championship 2017 and EHF EURO 2018 with the Netherlands.

In Copenhagen, Debbie Bont will draw the teams of pot 4, Linn Blohm will draw from pot 3, Sanna Solberg is ‘in charge’ of pot 2 and Trine Ostergaard enters the stage for pot 1.

Pots and playing dates

The participating 28 teams have been seeded as follows:

• Pot 1: France, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Romania, Montenegro, Germany
• Pot 2: Serbia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain, Slovenia, Poland, Croatia
• Pot 3: Austria, Belarus, Slovakia, Turkey, FYR Macedonia, Ukraine, Italy
• Pot 4: Switzerland, Iceland, Portugal, Lithuania, Faroe Islands, Kosovo, Winner Qualifiers Phase 1

The teams will be drawn to seven groups of four teams each. The first two teams of each group will qualify for the final tournament.

Israel, Finland, Greece and Luxembourg have to play a first qualification phase which will be staged in a tournament format from 31 May to 2 June 2019.

The qualifiers are then played as follows:

• Round 1: 25/26 September 2019
• Round 2: 28/29 September 2019
• Round 3: 25/26 March 2020
• Round 4: 27/28 March 2020
• Round 5: 27/28 May 2020
• Round 6: 31 May 2020 (according to the applicable regulations, all matches will throw off at 16:00 hrs Vienna time)

The Women’s EHF EURO 2020 takes place in Norway and Denmark from 4 to 20 December 2020.