The navarre scored seven goals and led to the selection in his first victory in the European Handball championship
The Warriors lived their golden age between 2011 and 2014. A bronze in the 2011 World, another bronze in the London Olympic Games and a silver in the 2014 European formed a record difficult to match in the handball female in Spanish. Now, four years after that last achievement, a new team has been presented at the European of France with the aim of giving a blow on the table and prove that the winning spirit is still alive.
Of the generation that did enjoy it to an entire country, Silvia Navarro and Nerea Pena and Carmen Martín still forming part of the national team. The coach, Carlos Viver, is another of the newbies. This European is his second big tournament, after the World cup last year. Spain is undergoing a stage of transition, with a mixture of youth and seniority. And these are precisely the players more experienced that mandated the first victory of Spain against Croatia, with a score of 25-18, redefined by the Croatian at the last minute. The advantage came to be eleven goals.
A defense leathery and several interventions of Silvia Navarro left Croatia in only five goals in the first half, with a total of nine minutes in a row without finding the net. In the previous meeting, the players and the Spanish coach agreed that the defense would make the role of the Warriors in the championship. And in the debut showed his relentless momentum to protect his goal. It is true that in front was the weaker opponent in the Group C. But Spain showed their candidacy to the medals with a game overwhelming. In attack, everything was going by Nerea Pena. Scored five goals without failure in just 13 minutes in the first half.
The bench celebrating every action as if for a final question. And even more so when the portress Merche Castellanos made his debut at age 30 with the t-shirt of the selection. And what made it so unbeatable, stopping a launch from up to seven meters. Meanwhile, the young Jénnifer Gutierrez and Mireya Gonzalez liked in attack and increased the lead to ten goals before getting to the rest time.
Spain continued with the aggressiveness defensively and maintained the advantage without problems, except for a timid approach of the Croatian five minutes for the conclusion. In attack, Sole Lopez, who entered at the last minute in the list due to the injury of Amaia González de Garibay, scored three consecutive goals from seven meters. Nerea Pena, for his part, continued to his own. The defense Croatian observed continuously how the navarre became a goal every shot, adding up to a total of seven goals and leading to the selection in his first victory in this european event.
After the resounding victory in the debut, next Monday, Spain will measure their options for medal against one of the favourites, Holland. The selection central, one of the teams competing for the gold and the ticket directly at the Tokyo Olympics, scored its first victory in the other match in Group C, against Hungary.
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