The Men’s 20 EHF Championship for the 22
teams not playing at the top-level continental competition, the Men’s 20 EHF
EURO 2018, will be held in FYR Macedonia and Montenegro from July 20 to 29.
While the Men’s 20 EHF EURO is contested between the 16 top-ranked sides in the
continent, the Men’s 20 EHF Championship is intended to help the lower-ranked
nations develop their junior-age players.
The competition is divided in two, with
two winners awarded on the final day of competition. Participation is
determined based on seeding by the EHF, which decides the 16 teams that play
the 20 EHF EURO and the 22 that contest the 20 EHF Championship. The Men’s 18 EHF
Championship also offers a path to the upper-level competition, with the
winners qualifying for the following Men’s 20 EHF EURO.
At the first edition of the Men’s 18 EHF
Championship, in 2016, Hungary, Romania and Israel won their respective
tournaments and therefore qualified for the Men’s 20
EHF EURO 2018, to be played in Celje, Slovenia. This system of junior-age
events for European teams was introduced in 2016 after approval of EHF Congress
in 2014 and is fully implemented as of this summer.
The Men’s 20 EHF Championship will be
played in both Skopje and Buducnost, with two preliminary round groups taking
the court in each city. From the preliminary round, the top two teams in each
group proceed to the main round, while the bottom-ranked sides contest the
intermediate round. The two top-ranked squads in the main round groups qualify
for the semi-finals.
For the championship in Buducnost, the
preliminary round groups were drawn as follows:
Group A: Czech Republic, Austria,
Netherlands, Moldova, Kosovo, Bulgaria
Group B: Slovakia, Turkey, Montenegro, Latvia, Georgia
For the championship in Skopje, the
preliminary round groups are:
Group A: Belarus, Faroe Islands,
Finland, Greece, Estonia, Lithuania
Group B: Switzerland, Italy, FYR Macedonia, Ukraine, Great Britain
All matches will be streamed live and free
on ehfTV.com. More information on the
Men’s 20 EHF Championship can be found on the EHF’s official
website.