Clean sweep for the Parisians

Denmark (Mikkel Hansen, Henrik Toft Hansen)
Denmark are undoubtedly one of the favourites for this Euro and the Scandinavians have been living up to expectations early in the competition. Thursday evening, in Debrecen (Hungary), Henrik Toft Hansen and his teammates won in style against Montenegro (30-21). At the break, the World Champions seemed to have already done the hardest part (18-10). As expected, Mikkel Hansen shone. The Parisian left-back finished as top scorer in the match by scoring ten times from just eleven attempts. A very good omen before facing Slovenia (winner of their first game against Northern Macedonia, 27-25), on Saturday night.

Netherlands (Luc Steins)
The Netherlands hit the ground running too! The task did not look easy for Luc Steins' team, who were up against host country Hungary - in Budapest. Our centre-half scored three goals and was one of the main architects of his team's success. They made the difference in the last three minutes (56': 28-28), by inflicting a 3-0 on the home side - an advantage that they managed to keep until the buzzer (28-31). On Sunday evening, the Dutch will try to confirm this very good result against Iceland, who lost in the opening game against Portugal (24-28).

Poland (Kamil Syprzak)
It's also going well for Poland, who got the better of Austria (31-36) on Friday evening. The Paris Saint-Germain Handball's Polish pivot Kamil Syprzak participated in this success by finding the net three times. He and his partners were never really worried by their opponents and were always in control of the game. The difference was mainly seen in terms of efficiency in front of goal, with 75% of successful attempts for the Poles, against 65% for the Austrians. Before facing Germany, Kamil will have to face Belarus on Sunday in Bratislava.

Spain (Ferran Solé Sala)
It wasn't a case of fun and games for defending champions Spain as they began their title defence against the Czech Republic. While La Roja took the lead at the end of the first quarter (16': 6-4) and never let it go, they never managed to really outrun their opponent. At the end of the game, all scenarios remained possible (57': 26-24), until the Spanish clinched it in the dying moments (28-26). There were two goals from Les Rouge et Bleus' right-winger Ferran Solé Sala, including a magnificent one from nine metres. On Saturday, Spain will face Sweden, who won big against Bosnia-Herzegovina (30-18).

(Credits: J. Azouze/TeamPics/PSG)