Ukraine’s national handball team wins its biggest victory in 6 years
17 March 09:38
VIDEO
Ukraine’s national men’s handball team defeated Kosovo in a Euro 2026 qualifying match with a score of 36:25. This victory was the biggest in the last 6 years, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.
The match of the 4th round of the men’s qualifying tournament for the 2026 European Championship took place in Klaipeda, Lithuania, yesterday, March 16. After the previous disastrous match with the Kosovars, when Ukraine lost to a semi-amateur team with a score of 31:30, the national team worked on mistakes and put things in order in defense.
“We changed the defense system: it became more aggressive, we changed one player in the defense. Our newcomer Ihor Skyba came on and, I think, coped with this task,”
– commented on the changes head coach Vadym Brazhnyk in a commentary for Suspilne Sport.
The defense of the Kosovo national team also did not look as strong as in the previous match, so the Ukrainian team managed to increase the goal difference from the very beginning of the game. Toward the end of the first half, our team reached a comfortable ten-goal difference and from then on remained approximately within this handicap.
“Nothing has changed dramatically in the attack. But we wanted to run out in quick transitions, through a fast center and a second tempo. The task was to run the whole game, and the players fulfilled it,”
– said the head coach.
Ukraine showed excellent shot realization statistics – 72% against 50% for the opponent. Igor Turchenko became the team’s top scorer with 10 goals.
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But perhaps the main indicator that provided our team with such a confident victory was the play of goalkeeper Anton Terekhov, who made a fantastic 18 saves out of 43 shots (41% save rate). The opponent had only 5 saves. So, if the Ukrainian goalkeeper had played on a par with the Kosovar goalkeeper, our team could have lost.
According to the head coach, the Ukrainian team is physically stronger than the Kosovars, and it used this indicator.
“There were losses, but it doesn’t matter – when you play fast, there will always be some losses. I am sure that we are physically stronger than Kosovo and we had to use it. In the second half, Kosovo created problems for us with a 7-on-6 game, but we already had a lead and won confidently,”
– vadym Brazhnyk commented.
Thus, Ukraine won with a score of 36:25, and this victory was the biggest in the last 6 years. The last time the men’s national team of Ukraine won with a difference of 11 goals was in 2019, and then the Faroe Islands became the rival of our team (30:19), with whom Ukraine will play again in May.
Currently, the national team of Ukraine is in second place in its qualifying group, which guarantees entry to the 2026 European Championship.
The first two teams from the group, as well as the best 4 out of 8 third teams in eight groups, are guaranteed to qualify for Euro 2026.
Ukraine will play its last qualifying matches on May 8 and 11 against the Netherlands and the Faroes, respectively.
