The co-hosts have not made a major semi-final since the EHF EURO 2012, when they eventually took bronze. Since then, their best result was sixth, in 2014.
Romania were unable to continue the form that saw them beat Sweden on Friday night, but are still in with a chance of playing the fifth-place match depending on other results.
GROUP I
Hungary vs Romania 37:29 (20:15)
- despite Romania keeping the co-hosts on their toes until the 20th minute, Hungary upped the tempo ahead of the break and took a decent five-goal lead, thanks to Blanka Böde-Bíró saving Bianca Bazaliu’s seven-metre shot after the buzzer
- Romania's defence failed to find an answer for Hungary's fast-paced style of play, and in attack did not have the same efficiency as their opponents
- Bianca Curment made 15 saves between the sticks for Romania, finishing with a save efficiency of 33 per cent
- Katrin Klujber scored 10 goals from 14 attempts as well as making five assists, and the right back was chosen as the Player of the Match, presented by Grundfos
- Lorena Ostase was Romania's top scorer: the captain scored six goals without missing a single shot
- the Fönix Arena was bouncing as the passionate Hungarian supporters created an amazing atmosphere, helping their favourites to get the job done in Debrecen
Petra Simon, Hungary's secret weapon
After playing as second fiddle to Hungary's core trio of Csenge Kuczora, Petra Vamos and Katrin Klujber for most of the matches at the Women's EHF EURO 2024, Petra Simon's time to fully shine finally came against Romania.
The 20-year-old centre back caught Romania's defence off guard with her passing abilities and handball IQ. Simon added creativity and unpredictability to Hungary's attack in the opening half with the result still in the balance, and the co-hosts made full use of that to build an uncatchable advantage.
Even though Klujber stole the goal-scoring show, Simon provided Hungary with a much-needed spark which completely changed the match.
We are really happy that after the sixth game in this tournament we already know that we are in the semi-finals. We worked a lot, really hard, in the past few years, and we are really proud of the team and of the girls. Of course, we would like to thank the fans because the atmosphere was fantastic tonight and they pushed us.
We expected to play better, but I think that we lost too many one-on-one duels in defence, we didn’t play at our level in defence, like we did against Sweden. But in the first half it was the key, we lost too many good one-on-one situations.
