IHF Trophy – European Zone starts today in Pristina, live stream online
The Great Britain Men’s Under 18 (Youth) and Under 20 (Junior) are in the capital city of Kosovo, Pristina, as they prepare to open their IHF Trophy – European Zone men’s youth and junior campaigns later this afternoon.
Both competitions throw-off today (23 October), before finishing on Sunday (28 October), and feature four teams in the youth championship and six in the junior championship – all from emerging European handball nations.
In the youth tournament, GB will be joined by Kosovo, Moldova and Albania, while the hosts Kosovo, along with Moldova, Malta, Georgia and GB’s friendly rivals Ireland, will compete in the junior tournament, alongside Great Britain.
The GB teams today both start their campaigns against host nation Kosovo with U18 coach Chris McDermott seeing his side throw-off at 3pm and U20 coach Bobby White’s team throwing-off at 5pm.
Both GB coaches - who will be serving in interim positions in Kosovo while our recruitment process for the head coach positions continues – named their squads earlier this month, with McDermott announcing a strong 14-name youth side and White choosing a squad of just 12 due to injuries and playing commitments.
However, the presence of our teams in both age groups in Kosovo represents the continued development of GB as a handball nation on the continental and world stage and both teams will be looking for a strong campaign after they met in Stoke Mandeville earlier this week before flying out.
All games from Kosovo are set to be streamed live via the IHF website with the following links available for the youth and junior tournament games today:
Fans can check the British Handball social media channels for results and news, plus all the latest tournament news via the IHF’s dedicated tournament website .
The junior games will be played at the Palace of Youth and Sports and the youth games will take place at the Palace of 1 October sports hall.
The junior tournament will be played in a round-robin format with the top-placed team at the end winning the title, while the youth tournament has an initial round-robin format before the top two teams go through to the final.
The winners of each Continental Phase go through to the IHF Intercontinental Phase, where the European nations will take on the winners of the IHF Trophy continental championship across the world and the eventual winners of the IHF Men’s Intercontinental Trophy in the junior competition will secure a place at the 2019 IHF Men’s Junior World Championship.
More information can be found on the IHF website HERE.
Great Britain - Match Schedule
All times UK – BST (then GMT on Sunday as clocks go back)
Tuesday 23 October
15:00 GBR vs Kosovo (Youth U18)
17:00 GBR vs Kosovo (Junior U20)
Wednesday 24 October
13:00 GBR vs Albania (Youth U18)
15:00 GBR vs Georgia (Junior U20)
Thursday 25 October
13:00 GBR vs Moldova (Youth U18)
Friday 26 October
15:00 GBR vs Moldova (Junior U20)
Saturday 27 October
13:00 or 16:00 Bronze or Gold medal match (Youth U18) - teams to be confirmed
15:00 GBR vs Ireland (Junior U20)
Sunday 28 October
11:00 GBR vs Malta (Junior U20)
