Danila So Delgado: “If my team need me to score, I will do it”

For Danila So Delgado, 2026 has started just like 2025 ended: with scoring a lot of goals.

In the first EHF Champions League group match after the winter break, the Spanish left back netted 11 times. It was not enough, though, to prevent Gloria Bistrita from suffering an upset, 38:34, at home against OTP Group Buducnost, who had gained just one point from the previous eight rounds in group A.

“We really had a lot of problems in defence, and we definitely need to work harder on that for the upcoming games,” So Delgado said after the match last Saturday.

Scoring a lot is also what So Delgado did at the IHF World Championship in November and December. She found the net 43 times — her personal best tally at a major event — only for Spain, the 2019 silver medallists, to rank a rather disappointing 14th in the final standings.

“It was a hard pill to swallow for all of the group,” So Delgado reflects on the tournament, in which Spain most notably squandered a six-goal lead with 20 minutes left to play in a 31:29 defeat against Serbia.

Otherwise, the 2025/26 season so far has been excellent for So Delgado — both personally and with her club.

Bistrita are the surprise package of the EHF Champions League group phase. They rank third in a tough group A and, until last weekend, only suffered defeats against renowned powerhouses Györi Audi ETO KC and Metz Handball.

Not bad for a team competing only for the second time in Europe’s top flight. Last season, Bistrita didn’t make it out of the group; this time, they look bound to advance at least to the play-offs.

“I think one of the main reasons has to be the big desire we feel to belong to this competition. For all of us, Champions League is the biggest dream of a player,” So Delgado says.

“In my particular case, that gives you the courage to give everything you have to stay in the competition and have fun while doing it. Also, an important factor is the feeling that we don’t have anything to lose but everything to win.”

With that attitude, how far can Bistrita really go this season?

“We can go as far as we believe as a team,” So Delgado says. “At this point of the competition, it is fundamental to have faith and trust in the people you are surrounded by. Time will tell what the limit is, I prefer to dream with the possibilities.”

Bistrita have clicked into a higher gear compared to last season, and So Delgado has been excelling. She scored 66 goals in total last year but has already netted 55 times after nine rounds in the current season.

It makes So Delgado the fourth-best scorer of the group phase, with only four goals fewer than the top scorer — Team Esbjerg’s Norwegian star Henny Reistad, who she is set to meet in the Match of the Week of round 10 on Sunday (18 January at 16:00 CET, live on EHFTV).

While Bistrita lost to Buducnost last week, Esbjerg eased past BV Borussia Dortmund (31:24) to close the gap to the Romanian side in the group A standings to a single point. So, the winners of Sunday’s MOTW will occupy the third spot behind Györ and Metz after 10 of the 14 rounds.

Last October, Bistrita beat Esbjerg 38:35 in the reverse fixture in Romania, and So Delgado is confident they can do it again when visiting the four-time EHF FINAL4 contenders in Denmark on Sunday.

“We just need to play our game and assume that we are playing against an amazing team with amazing players,” says the left back, who scored seven times in that first meeting with Esbjerg.

“We need our performance to be better than the last game and we need to believe that we can win against them.”

‘Belief’ has always been a key factor of So Delgado’s career.

Born in Portugal to parents from Guinea-Bissau, she grew up in Spain, where she started to play handball at Balonmano Colores in Zaragoza.

She left her youth club at age 17 in 2018 and played for two other Spanish clubs before signing with ATTICGO Bm Elche in 2022. As their top scorer, So Delgado contributed 75 goals to Elche’s run to the EHF European Cup title in 2023/24.

Meanwhile, having played for Spain’s various youth and junior teams since 2017, she made her A team debut in July 2023 in a friendly against Romania. After the recent World Championship, her track record in the national team stands at 151 goals from 42 matches.

Talking about Romania: that is the same country she moved to from Elche in 2024.

“Leaving home is always a challenge and moving abroad is even harder. Leaving family and friends and everything I knew was the hardest decision I’ve taken in my life,” So Delgado says about her transfer.

“I think my biggest motivation was to really experience what being a professional handball player meant and if I was going to be able to step up to the level I was fighting to belong to.”

Into the second season with her first foreign club, So Delgado can say for sure she has stepped up to the highest level — and not only on the court.

Having learnt Romanian, she now speaks six different languages. And after completing her first master’s degree, she is currently studying for her second at an online university.

“I don’t regret taking that decision because of the growth I experienced as a player and as a person having to learn how to manage in life when I’m on my own,” she adds.

Known for idolising retired Spanish great Alexandrina Cabral Barbosa, who also once played for Bistrita, So Degado has another player she looks up to: Jackson Richardson.

“I really admire his joy of playing and how distinguishing he was amongst the others. I would love to instil the passion for handball like he did,” she says.

Trying to continue her consistency this season, So Delgado is keen to showcase her scoring prowess again in Sunday’s MOTW against Esbjerg, even though she tends not to look closely at her statistics.

“I just try to worry to do better than the last match. I prioritise the team: if we win, I win,” says So Delgado, who has scored seven goals or more in five of Bistrita’s nine group matches so far, including two 11-goal outings.

“I try to do my best to help the team in what I know I’m capable of doing,” she adds. “The only reflection I make is that if my team need me to score, I will do it in order to win.”

images © Stummbillig (main and last in-text); Roland Peka (first in-text); Istvan Derencsenyi; Bianca Sălăgean; Nebojsa Tejic/kolektiff; Anze Malovrh/kolektiff (galleries)