Paris (AFP)
France, seeded, was rather spared Tuesday during the draw for qualifications for the Euro-2022 men's handball by being placed in Group 1 along with Serbia, Belgium and Greece.
To participate in the competition which will take place in Hungary and Slovakia in January 2022, the French will have to take one of the first two places of their group, or finish among the best four thirds of the eight qualification groups, a task largely theirs. scope.
The Serbs indeed finished 20th in Euro-2020 in Norway in January, while the Belgians and the Greeks have never yet managed to qualify for a European championship.
Euro-2020 had however been a total fiasco for the French team, eliminated in the first round and ultimately 14th. This poor performance led to the dismissal of coach Didier Dinart, replaced by his assistant Guillaume Gille in the aftermath of the event.
These qualifications for Euro-2022 will take place from November 2020 to May 2021 during three international windows where two matches will be played.
The second of them for the Tricolores will take place in early January 2021, just four days before the World Cup in Egypt. The Blues were supposed to contest it in March 2021, but they will then participate in an Olympic qualification tournament at Paris-Bercy to hope to see the Tokyo Olympics, postponed to the summer of 2021 because of the Covid pandemic -19.
© 2020 AFP