Handball journeys

We are under a fortnight away from the Men's European Handball Championships and it felt so eerie when I saw last night the Hispanos getting ready for the preparatory tournament as they dare to defend the title won in Croatia.  I usually keep my items ready for use in a couple of days. That will not be happening this year.  My coverage will be unusual this year. Very challenging, very sad. Away from the actual event. Unsure on many levels what will be happening. I know that my travel to Mannheim with USAM days after shall not be taking place either as the game is now moved to a late Sunday kick-off. Would like to provide my gratitude to institutions and fans from Norway, Austria and Sweden  so that they make the experience for handball fans from any country including France, Hungary, Spain and Germany thoroughly safe, enjoyable and thrilling.  Dear players I will be missing you.  Dear media I will be missing you.  Dear fellow fans I will be missing you. Dear officials

Hearing Paul on the IHF streaming is really odd and funny at the same time.  Final being streamed live Early start and 3-1 to Spain. Cabral with a great steal. Devastating. AUPA GUERRERAS  Mireia manages two in the space of a minute. One easy followed a huge extension. Her mother must be over the moon.  It is 5-2 on 5 minutes. Defence is key, as a first attack Monumental Sylvia in goal. She is such a sweet inspiration. It is 7-4 on 8 minutes. Cabral miss may be costly but thank God Sylvia saves the day. Redeemed herself Alexandra and the score-line is 8-5 on 10 minutes played Nerea gets her penalty. Inexplicably it is 9-8 on 15 minutes. Efficiency in attack not as clear cut Never under-estimate and quitar errores por favor. 9-9 on 16 minutes. It is very quiet over the last five minutes.  The French twin refs are not in trouble. Poor block so penalised and Spanish goal cancelled. Cesareo grabbing a suspension. Ironically suddenly three suspensions within seconds. Seco

Las Guerreras are playing their first world championship final vs the Netherlands and I am not with them. VAYA LASTIMA. AUPA GUERRERAS in an hour time live from Tokyo. On Teledeporte or IHF TV? It reminds me the moment when I saw one of Carlos Viver team member in Salamanca  just over a year ago.... Amazing. The redundancy drew me into cancelling all the projects because I am unable to concentrate on my handball passion unless I have a stable job or professional task to support the financial costs or expenses. The alternative is to work as a journalist or a reporter in the industry but like politics it is very demanding and time consuming. And I missed a lot of opportunities.  I am lucky though not to have a family to look after, which provides some flexibility, but with Brexit I am now conscious that London could get even more detached from the world of handball. Japan was looked at carefully because it is also the Olympics location in 2020. The rugby world cup remind

I asked about the match tickets for Cuenca and RNL away but no answers as of yet. I also mentioned the photography but no answers either. I will have to call again the SAP Arena and RNL ticketing team on Monday or as early as possible because I am not able to read the info details in German as RNL provides a special mechanism for the 3 group home matches. And soon flight prices will increase and the hotel I saw will be sold out. I got paid so monies is not an issue as pressing.  EHF Cup 2019/20 Group B Phase   Rhein-Neckar Löwen Has many prominent players I have met through my international travels and reports Liberbank Cuenca Never visited this town nor necessarily know any of their players. Surprised they did so well last year in the ASOBAL USAM Nimes Gard TTH Holstebro  Where in Denmark? I did not know that club. Understand that like USAM it used to be a driving force when I was a teenager playing handball.  Now with Brexit travelling overseas will have a differ

Match report  16 November 2019       14:00 hours GMT EHF Cup First Leg Group Stage last qualifying round Csurgoi - USAM Gard Streaming will start at the last minute. Stream starting soon … Stressful wait. I can see a lot of empty seats in a small sports complex Our away kit is a flashy mixture of yellow and green Referees are from Montenegro Very small field of play. HAZAI vs VENDEG = HOME VS AWAY 1 st half Good defense by USAM but still conceding the first goal Good save by opposing keeper Rok ZAPONSEK wearing shirt no. 32 on 2mins Acquevillo unorthodoxically makes it 1-1 on 3min Sanad missed an easy chance on the wing almost immediately after 2 nd save by the opposite keeper Padolius annihilates one shot but no one is there to get the rebound so the opposite number 3 scores Then Acquevillo runs and his shot on the opposing low corner. His second on five minutes being played Penalty conceded on 7 mins. Scor

USAM Gard won in Tremblay and are second in the French league [LNH] before heading for Hungary. That's really good.  I just hope their flight does not stop at Venice because the floods appeared really bad as a state of emergency was raised. All my eyes geared towards the game at 2pm GMT this Saturday 16 November 2019. All smiles please. It is likely to be a gladiator's battle. No drinking allowed during the live reporting from London.  A bit of work on the subject in the morning before I get to Clapham Junction for something I should have checked since my birthday (Guy Fawkes) and I hope to get sorted.

Cette semaine est importante car elle oblige l'USAM vers deux matchs importants pour le reste de la saison.  Une bonne prestation ce mercredi en terre de Tremblay sans trembler pourrait mettre en confiance pour un voyage exotique proche de la Croatie et de la Slov é nie, dans une partie magnifique de la Hongrie.  Malheureusement ce match aller qualificatif pour la phase de poules de l'EHF Cup contre Csurgoi ne semblerait pas faire partie des choix sur EHF TV. On suivra ceci avec beaucoup d'attention.  GO GREEN. Inspirations provenant de Venise, passage connu des gladiateurs verts ?

Under the weather due to a nasty cold, I clicked on the Spanish news and they had the BIDASOA IRUN - TATRAN PRESOV in the background. Having a preference for the weekday Saber y Ganar I swapped the Zaragoza chocolate for the rowdy and noisy ARTALEKU sports complex. BIDASOA playing an interesting defensive game against unpredictable Slovakian giants PRESOV. I have been missing all these exciting games and I remember with a lot of pleasure the great atmosphere in the near the French border small city. Urban with a lot of urbanity smiles when his side is up 12-15 at the break. One of the nicest USAM players, Thomas Tesorière, plays for Bidasoa wearing jersey no.27. We need to pay him a visit. On 16 minutes in the second half his exclusion was so unfair and the worries increased with a deficit of 6 goals. There was a bit of justice when Presov missed their penalty with ten minutes left the score-line being 20-25 Much as I love him Thomas wasted a chanc

Les aventures avec les amis du handball se feront par des moyens bien loin des histoires depuis 2011. Les batailles pour un travail ont rendu les candidatures medias caduques. La visite hongroise de l'USAM est aussi impossible. Mais les matches de groupe seraient bienvenus. Le monde du handball est un corollaire des passions que seuls les vestiges antiques repris peuvent assurer. Un sourire serait vite bienvenu. Rien n'est acquis sur le pont professionnel mais les matches internationaux de la fin octobre ont eu un parfum unique. Et hors de France et de l'Espagne, au Royaume-Uni il est difficile de les capter.

Hier soir je me suis fait mal en ne regardant pas le match mais depuis Londres le seul moyen c'est le live de la LNH.  D'autres choses importantes bouleversent l'agenda. Mais c'est le genre de matchs que l'on veut gagner. Et selon le peu de news captees, les gardiens Remi et Mr Sego ont fait exploser leurs stats de maniere EPIQUE. 25-24 pour l'USAM! La bonne humeur garantie pour un instant. BRAVO l'USAM. Attention tirage au sort de l'EHF Cup very soon !

As the tournament draw is unfolding in a few hours time. As the neutrality of your humble blogger needs to be professionally clear. Before and after the matches I shall present in a diligent and professional manner match reports, interviews, impromptu poetry etc. For obvious reasons I want Spain and France to do well.  During the matches there shall be no sign of biased support. Only the respect and sharing of the same passion and respect with all the fellow reporters, fans, officials and players. One gets to know all type of people. You tend to get on with the vast majority of them through your knowledge, your educated manners, your passion and your honesty. The devil is in the detail. Less is more as well. Like in business practices. It is no different. If anything it is even more important than in business. I will be applying for the media accreditation this time around. I will also be looking for a more formal endorsement because the Granollers experience back in 2013 was

Malheureusement les ambitions du palmier vert du Mont-Duplan ont du faire face à une réalité préparant  à la loterie d'un tour préliminaire de la EHF Cup en septembre 2019 mais je ne sais pas si je pourrai voyager. Finir 4 è me ce serait mieux mais ce n'est pas gagn é ! Car un dossier pour la Champions pourrait alors voir le jour.

Well done to Vardar.  I suddenly remembered in Munich the Vardar fan and photographer supporting the Macedonia handball federation. Parrondo has achieved a huge thing with Vardar and his assistant has now made history by being the first lady coach winning gold at the Final Four in the men's competition. I was expecting Sterbik and Nenadic to secure a comeback in the second half. It wasn't to be for the likes of Lekai and Nagy. I have to say Vardar played so well as a team and their hunger was faultless. Their joy at the end was really beautiful to see. 

40-35. It finished. Both keepers were below par. Kielce should have done better when Barcelona were down to 4 players. Palmarsson was sublime in his distribution. The young winger Ilic was fairly impressive. Julen could not play because a new star in the making whose last name starts with a...K... has replaced him as line player. The referees made some strange decisions for the 2 min suspensions. It was not a classy match by any stretch. Dika Mem was awarded Man of the Match but I am not a huge fan of his gameplay. One of his goals early in the second half was really special. Some of the combinations by Kielce were really good. In half an hour it will be the gold medal match.  

When one thinks that he has seen everything in handball, you see two semis with a lot of talking points. Sterbik was having a 65% saving rates when he got injured following an unsolicited collision with a Kielce player. Kielce should have been out of sight but Vezsprem were fairly ineffectual.  And as you were under the impression that the tie was turning to Kielce's favour the Hungarian side managed to  wrap up the match in the final minutes. As for the Barcelona match all my sympathies go to Noelia Quero who must be devastated. I was chatting with family members when the second half was being played. I watched the second half again and I am still at a loss as to how Xavi Pascual's side squandered a 7-goal advantage and a 4-goal advantage going into the last eight minutes. Fascinating stuff. Much more exciting than the tiny final taking place in Madrid... We shall see which former Ciudad Real player will be the trophy's winner, as a manager, this year. I have to say t

Pocos instantes antes del inicio de la primavera 500 Days of ASOBAL This is not the start of a movie overlay It is public knowledge he is full of class. He should be proud and raise a glass He actually achieved 500 game days A great champion. A role model. Finding inspiration and motivation Alongside brothers and team mates From the out and inside contribution Is second to none. There is no debate. A classy player. A role model. Local, national, international hero. Ojalá cumplas mucho más números. Enhorabuena Raúl. Muchas gracias. Balham 9h10 10 March 2019 2019 - HJ127Mar19    Back in 2014 in Aalborg he was already the ideal playmaker for Spain alongside Joan !