Following the opening of the W19 EHF EURO 2021 in Slovenia on Thursday, the Women’s 19 EHF Championships in Italy and North Macedonia are set for throw off. While nine teams are contesting the tournament in North Macedonia, seven are vying for the title in Italy.

For each of the EHF Championships, the teams were drawn into two groups for the preliminary round, from which the two top-ranked sides in each will progress straight to the semi-finals.

In North Macedonia, Iceland, Poland, Belarus and Finland will start in group A, while the Netherlands, Faroe Islands, hosts North Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina will play from group B. Iceland, who placed second at the W17 EHF Championship 2019 in Italy, are among the favourites in this tournament.

The EHF Championship in North Macedonia will see the first preliminary matches played on Saturday and the last next Thursday.

In Italy, group A features Serbia, Italy, Turkey and Bulgaria. Spain, Lithuania and Israel will play in group B. Serbia were the highest ranked of these teams at the previous EHF Championship for this age category, at the tournament held in Georgia in 2019.

Spain and the Netherlands could also be among the top teams at the EHF Championships, having contested the higher-tier W17 EHF EURO 2019 but being relegated due to their rankings at the bottom of that event.

Due to the smaller number of teams, the preliminary round for the tournament in Italy will begin on Monday and then conclude alongside the North Macedonia event on Thursday. The semi-finals at both EHF Championships will take place on Saturday 17 July and the finals will be the following day.

The full schedule and standings for the EHF Championships can be found here: North Macedonia and Italy.

Follow the action on EHFTV and EHF social media

The W19 EHF Championships will be streamed live on EHFTV. There will also be up-to-date coverage on the Home of Handball social media channels on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as well as reports on eurohandball.com.