The preliminary round of the Men's 19 EHF Championship in North Macedonia came to an end on Thursday with the battle for the semi-final spots in group A going down to the wire.

GROUP A

• North Macedonia knew they needed victory in the final group game against Poland to progress and that is exactly what they managed
• the home side held the narrowest of leads at the break, 16:15, following a first half which was neck and neck throughout
• but they came out hard in the second half to take a five-goal lead at the 45-minute mark and never looked back, beating Poland 30:25 – a result which sends both sides through and knocks Greece out

GROUP B

• both Bosnia Herzegovina and Switzerland knew they were through, making their clash a group final
• the Bosnians held the lead until the 40th minute when Switzerland went on a 9:2 run to turn the game on its head and win 30:26
• Ukraine beat Georgia 32:25 to secure third place in the group

Semi-final line up

The semi-finals in Skopje take place on Friday afternoon, beginning with Poland vs Bosnia Herzegovina at 15:30 CEST, then Switzerland vs North Macedonia at 18:00.

The final and remaining placement matches with take place on Sunday 15 August with all matches streamed live on EHFTV. Also, the Home of Handball social media channels on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as well as the reports on eurohandball.com will keep fans up to date throughout the event.