Six milestones to capture your attention at EHF EURO 2022

A record for Neagu?

We all love goals at EHF EURO, right? They were in high supply over the last few tournaments and the first milestone that could be hit is the all-time top goal scorer. Romanian left back Cristina Neagu is 36 goals shy of the 300-goal mark, a mark that has never been hit, neither at the Women’s EHF EURO, nor the men’s tournament, where Icelandic left wing Gudjon Valur Sigurdsson has scored 288 goals.

Neagu is also the all-time top scorer in EHF EURO history, with 264 goals. Only three other players, Hungary’s Agnes Farkas (205), Sweden’s Isabelle Gullden (203) and Spain’s Carmen Martin (200) have scored 200 goals or more. However, that could change at EHF EURO 2022, with two more players ready to enter the select club.

One of them is Jovanka Radicevic, who is also chasing first place in the EHF Champions League Women, all-time top goal scorer standings where she needs only five more goals to overtake Anita Görbicz. The Montenegrin right wing, who will feature on her home court in the preliminary round, has scored 171 EHF EURO goals. Norway’s right back Nora Mørk is behind her in the standings with 169 goals and is the only player to win the top goal scorer award at two different EHF EURO editions.

Switzerland, team number 26 reach EHF EURO

Switzerland will take the number of teams to have competed in EHF EURO to 26.

They will also feature at EHF EURO 2024, which they will co-host with Austria and Hungary, making it two consecutive editions of the competition for Switzerland, an emerging side, who have a keen eye on developing the sport.

From the 25 sides who have already played at an EHF EURO, only Portugal have featured once, losing all three matches they played, while Iceland and Lithuania both failed to make it out of the preliminary round in the two editions they played in. Slovakia have also featured twice, in 1994 and 2014, making it to the main round in the latter tournament.

A new winning streak in the making

As the winners of eight tournaments and with 12 medals from 14 Women’s EHF EURO tournaments, it is hard to imagine anyone other than Norway holding the record for the highest number of goals scored and for the largest number of wins secured in the history of the competition.

Indeed, the Scandinavian powerhouse is the team with the highest number of wins, 87 from 2006, with Norway boast a winning efficiency of 82%, and they have lost 13 times in the competition.

Even if they win EHF EURO 2022 without dropping a single game, they still need five more wins to hit the 100-win milestone in the competition.

Thorir Hergeirsson’s side is riding a 12-game winning streak and closing in on the national record of 16 EHF EURO wins. Norway set the record between December 2004 and December 2006, when they won back-to-back gold medals without dropping a single game.

To set a new record, Norway need to win all their matches in the preliminary round and the first two in the main round.

New teams in the 50-win club?

Only three teams in history – Norway, Denmark, and Hungary – have reached the 50-win milestone at the EHF EURO, with two teams aiming to reach that exclusive club at the current edition.

Germany and France are both currently on 46 wins. However, Germany have won four games only once since 2008, at EHF EURO 2016, when they finished fifth.

France have secured 23 out of their 46 wins in the past four tournaments, winning six games each in 2016, 2018 and 2020, when they finished the competition on the podium.

Norway, first team to 3000 goals

No team in the history of the Women’s EHF EURO has scored more goals than Norway. They have 2993, 462 more than the second-best attack, Denmark. Norway’s average of goals scored in the tournament is an astonishing rate of 28.2 goals per game, with their output in 2020 of 254 scored goals, almost matching the best performance of 259 goals which came in 2004.

They will certainly hit the 3000-goal milestone and become the first team to do so, most likely in their first match in the competition, against Croatia in Ljubljana.

Other goal scoring milestones include France chasing the 146 goals needed to hit the 2000-goal mark, a number only Norway, Denmark, Russia, Hungary, Germany, and Romania have reached.

Montenegro need 55 goals to hit the 1000-goal mark, in doing so becoming the 14^th team to score 1000 goals at the Women’s EHF EURO.

Lunde, ready to write history

Only four players in history have played at least 50 EHF EURO matches. The leader is France’s left wing Siraba Dembele, who announced her international retirement in 2021, after 54 matches.

Close behind are Norway’s Karoline Dyhre Breivang and Katrine Lunde, with 52 games, while another Norwegian player, Camilla Herrem, has played 51 matches.

With Herrem pregnant and out of the competition, Lunde needs only three games to become the player with the most caps at EHF EURO. The 42-year-old goalkeeper is also the most capped player in Norway’s history, with 329 matches and if Norway win EHF EURO 2022 she will win her sixth trophy to become the most decorated EHF EURO player.