Located in the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between Norway and Iceland, the Faroe Islands have long been recognized in the world of sports for their cute and modest football team, which has been slowly growing year after year.
Although there were several memorable results, the football players of this country were never even close to the fairy tale, which is being written by the handball players of the Faroe Islands these days.
It sounds incredible, but the country with about 50.000 inhabitants (slightly more than Bar and Bijeli Polje, for example, and less than Nikšić) is one step away from qualifying for the European Handball Championship, which will be held in Germany next year.
"It doesn't matter that we are a small country, we just need to have 14 good handball players in the team," said 17-year-old Oli Mitun, now a member of the senior national team and handball player of Sweden's Savehof, at the European Youth Championship last year.
In fact, he and many of his teammates from that young selection form the basis of the senior national team, which won last night in Ukraine in the qualifiers (33:26) and took third place in the group - a position that should be enough to go to the EURO.
The two first-placed selections from all qualifying groups, as well as the four best third-placed teams, go to the European Championship, and the French can lose their current position only if they lose to the first-placed Austria in the last round, and Ukraine defeats Romania by at least seven points.
However, that is not really realistic, given that Romania won the first match against their neighbors with "plus eight".
A little less than five years ago, Montenegro met the handball players of the Faroe Islands in a shocking way at the time. Although the big favorites "lions" in October 2018 in the "Verde" hall did not manage to break the tough selection from the north of Europe, so the unreal draw (24:24) reverberated throughout Europe.
In addition to the aforementioned Mitun, the Faroe Islands have several other very talented handball players, and his cousin Elis Elefsen a Skipagotu, who will wear the jersey of the great Kiel in the summer, and who torpedoed the Ukrainians with 13 goals, stands out in particular.
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