Herning (Denmark) (AFP)

The French handball players, reigning European champions (2018), qualified for the Euro-2020 final in Denmark, thanks to their 30-19 victory against Croatia, Friday in the semi-final in Herning.

Siraba Dembélé's teammates will face Norway or Denmark on Sunday (6 p.m.) for their second consecutive continental final after the coronation at home at Paris-Bercy two years ago against Russia.

Since the creation of the European Ladies' Championship in 1994, only Denmark in the 1990s and Norway in the 2000s and 2010s have achieved the feat of retaining their continental crown from one edition to the next.

In Denmark for two and a half weeks, the French have achieved an almost flawless course.

They won against Montenegro (24-23), Slovenia (27-17), Denmark (23-20), Spain (26-25) and Croatia (30-19), and matched draw against Russia (28-28).

Faced with Croatia, a real surprise of this Euro-2020 and which was playing for the first time in a semifinal of a major championship, the players of Olivier Krumbholz flew over the first period and inflicted on their opponents a gap of ten goals at the break (15-5).

More in difficulty at the start of the second period, the Blue quickly restored order in their ranks, especially in defense, and exploited interceptions and loss of balls from the Croats to live the end of the meeting calmly.

-"We are hungry"-

"We took them by the throat, we lose little ball in the first half, and the second half we played, it's a good place in the final", savored Olivier Krumbholz at the microphone of BeIn Sports at the outcome of the meeting, ensuring that the Blue will throw "all their forces into the battle since it will be the last match".

"We are hungry, we will do everything to get this gold medal. We have fought so far and we hope that in two days we will be rewarded," warned center-half Grâce Zaadi.

This qualification for the final of Euro-2020 ensures the French women a fifth international podium in six major competitions: they won the silver medal at the 2016 Olympics, bronze at the Euro-2016 and gold at the World Cup. -2017 and Euro-2018.

For Euro-2020, it will therefore be gold or silver.

Only black spot on the Olympiad between Rio-2016 and Tokyo-2020 (postponed to the summer of 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic), the elimination from the first round of the World Cup-2019 a year ago Kumamoto in Japan (13th place), which is now a thing of the past and is definitely in the closet of bad memories.

© 2020 AFP