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This result means that Lithuanians with 4 points ranked third in the 4th selection group.
After a favorable match in other groups, the Lithuanian national team entered the European championships as one of the four best teams in third place. When ranking them, the results with the last-place team were not counted.
After all the fights in the other qualifying groups for the European Championship, it was clear that this week’s home win against the Icelanders turned fateful.
The Lithuanians had been ahead of the game in Portugal for a long time, but at the end of the second half our team ran out of strength and the competitors started to drift away. Halfway through the second half, the result was still the same (19:19), but then the opponents won the section 5: 0 and determined the fate of the match. In the closing minutes, the Lithuanians were still trying to save themselves, but the Portuguese played with discipline and saved the victory and at the same time secured first place in the group.
In the last national team match, the most productive of the Lithuanian team was Tadas Stankevičius, who scored 6 goals, Žanas Gabrielius Virbauskas and Arminas Stankūnas added 5, Valdas Drabavičius – 3, Aidenas Malašinskas and Jonas Truchanovičius – 2 each, Gerdas Babarskas and Mykolas Lapiniaus each.
Antonio Rodrigues was Portugal’s top scorer, scoring 7 goals, Alexandra Cavalcante added 4 accurate shots.
Lithuania first had to look at the result of other matches in our group and there Iceland’s 39:29 victory allowed our team to finish third in the group.
The Lithuanian team, who had two points, had to wait a bit for the results of other scenarios, but there everything went well.
A very important result was recorded in the Czech Republic, where the hosts beat the Ukrainian handball players 27:22. Even if this match had ended unfavorably, North Macedonia’s victory against Switzerland would have opened the way to the championship for the Lithuanians – 29:28.
The only unfavorable result for Lithuania was recorded in Austria, where the hosts beat Bosnia and Herzegovina by 27:23. However, this success of the Austrians and also the seized roadmap did not prevent the Lithuanians from joining the European championships.
Our national team flies back to Lithuania in the evening from Monday to Tuesday. It is true that some players from Portugal will travel directly to their clubs abroad.
The European Championship, with 24 teams, will take place in January 2022 in Hungary and Slovakia.
Both the host teams and the finalists of the previous championship, the teams of Spain and Croatia, had the right to play the final phase without a team.
The Lithuanian handball team participated in the European Championship for the only time in 1998, then the Lithuanians ranked ninth out of 12 teams in the championships held in Italy.
