Over the past five years, Dutch women have firmly established themselves at the top of global handball. Since the 2015 World Cup, the Orange has consistently reached the semi-finals at the major title tournaments. Only at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro did the national team miss the podium with fourth place.
Given that recent history, with last year’s global gold in Japan as the highlight, it is not surprising that the Netherlands is being tipped as the big favorite at the European Championship that started in Denmark on Thursday. A new situation for the team, which has been led by French national coach Emmanuel Mayonnade since the beginning of last year.
Under Mayonnade’s predecessors Henk Groener and Helle Thomsen, the Netherlands was still given the predicate outsider. That was no different in the run-up to last year’s world championship. Mayonnade had set itself the goal of finishing in the top six countries, good for participating in one of the three Olympic qualifying tournaments.
Surprising gold
With the surprising gold in Japan – the Netherlands lost three times and only got access to the semi-finals after Germany failed to enforce a draw against Norway – the status of Orange changed definitively. And so, the Netherlands starts the European Championship as a favorite, with Serbia (postponed to Saturday due to a corona infection), Croatia (Sunday) and Hungary (Tuesday) as opponents in the group stage.
Since 2015, the face of the team has changed more than the composition of the group. Of the team that won silver at the World Cup five years ago, also in Denmark, nine are still part of the current selection. That would have been ten if Estavana Polman had not suffered a serious knee injury earlier this year.
The question is how heavy the absence of Polman, named best player at the World Cup in Japan, will weigh. Certainly also because with Delaila Amega a second player is missing from the build-up row. The past has shown that the Netherlands can absorb the absence of an important player. Experienced circle runners Danick Snelder and Yvette Broch were missing at the bronze European Championship 2018 in France and Nycke Groot was not there at the World Cup last year.
Routine and quality
Without Polman there will be sufficient routine and quality in the team. The nine players who were there in 2015 are under contract with major European clubs and almost all play in the Champions League. And they all have more than a hundred international matches to their name, with Laura van der Heijden leading the way with 215 international matches.
In addition to the experienced players in the team, some of whom have been playing together in the orange shirt since the handball academy, six young people in their twenties are part of the current selection: Larissa Nusser (20), Nikita van der Vliet (20), Bo van Wetering (21), Dione Housheer (21), Merel Freriks (22) and second goalkeeper Rinka Duijndam (23). They too are all active in foreign competitions.
It is remarkable that the Netherlands did not always get off to a good start in the last six major title tournaments. Only twice, at the 2015 World Cup and the 2018 European Championship, the opening match was turned into a victory. The mutual score with Serbia, the first opponent in the Sydbank Arena in Kolding, is positive: three wins and one draw.
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