Almost three months after winning the bronze medal at the Paris Olympic Games, the Spanish handball team returns to the competition to compete for qualification for the 2026 European Championship. They will do so in a double match, against Italy and Latvia, on the 6th and 10th. November, with a very renewed team: up to five new faces – two debutants – are the spearhead of the revolution of Jordi Ribera, who was renewed as coach until the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Five new features
Ribera has called up Bordils’ brothers Petar and Djordje Cikusa, Jan Gurri and rookies Víctor Romero and Carlos Álvarez
For the double match at the beginning of November, Jordi Ribera has called up 16 players, with the addition of five young people who should be the future new backbone of the Spanish team, as members of the junior hispanics.
The return to the national team of Bordils’ brothers, 18 years old, Petar and Djordje Cikusa, stands out, the first, from Barça, who was in the Paris Games as a reserve (he did not make it into any call-up), and the second, at Montpellier, with three previous appearances in the national team.
He also calls up the young man from La Roca del Vallès Jan Gurri (22), who plays for Sporting Lisbon after training at Fraikin Granollers, and who has already played 8 games with the senior team (Ribera made his debut in March 2023 in the Eurocup).
The two debutants in the Hispanics They are Fraikin Granollers pivot Víctor Romero and Ademar León winger Carlos Álvarez.
The 20-year-old pivot, originally from Mataró, has been one of the key pieces of the Hispanic juniors in the last two years, in which he has won the 2023 U21 World Cup and the 2024 U20 Euro Cup in Slovenia.
The 21-year-old right winger has caught Ribera’s attention for his scoring ability. In the previous Asobal League he scored 198 goals with Ademar (an average of 6.6 goals per game), which earned him the name of best player in the competition. This year he maintains the level with 26 goals in 4 games (6.50 on average).
Ribera’s words
“There are players who are going to have their first opportunity and we must give them maximum support”
“It is a very new group, with very little training time because we have players who are going to play the Sunday before and they are going to have to join the group late. There are players who are going to have their first opportunity and we must give them maximum support so that they can do well, because we know the responsibility of putting on the Spanish National Team shirt,” commented the Sarrià de Ter coach.
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