With places at the 2014 IBSA Goalball World Championships up for grabs, many teams are not taking any risks and are doing their best to win comfortably.
 
Day 1 of the 2013 IBSA Goalball European Championships Men & Women A saw many very clear results. This is due to some up and coming teams building on the momentum that they have gained over the past few years while other previous top nations are now rebuilding a new team in a post Paralympic year.
 
The matchup between the London gold medallists, Finland, and London bronze medallists, Turkey, lived up to all expectations. This tense match ended in a 5 all draw. This result has the potential to open up this pool a bit more and we shall see over the next couple of days if one of the other three teams in Pool A (Belgium, Czech Republic or Slovenia) can take advantage of the situation.
 
The other Pool A matches saw Belgium, Czech Republic and Turkey all come through as comfortable winners. Just a few weeks ago Czech Republic defeated Finland in the final of the Open West Flemish Cup in Belgium and now they have done it again in style. They gave everything and hammered Finland 8-2.
 
Pool B and Lithuania are back to their usual ways. One of the most consistent teams for over a decade put on another couple of spectacular shows today. They cruised past Sweden and Germany today.
 
Lithuania, however, were not the only dominant team in Pool B. Spain missed out on a place at last year’s Paralympic Games but used 2012 to start building for Rio 2016 and the evidence of that was on show today. They scored strong wins against Sweden and Ukraine.
 
Moving on to the women’s side of the competition, defending champion Denmark went down twice today with the same score line. They lost 3-7 to both Spain and Turkey. This win for Spain was one of the two wins that they racked up today. They also had a narrow win over Israel, 4-3. The only close game in this pool today.
 
Pool Y wasn’t able to deliver one close match. Finland and Russia put on very dominant performances in both of their matches. Finland was too strong for Great Britain and a new look Swedish side. Russia was also punishing this new Swedish team as well as Ukraine.
 
The full list of results can be found below.
 
Day two throws up some potentially exciting matches with some of the dominant teams in each of the pools coming up against each other.
 
From Pool A, Turkey and Czech Republic will face off. It has been a long time since these two teams have met at an official tournament due to them always being in different classes within Europe.
 
In Pool B, Lithuania and Spain will battle it out while Germany, Sweden and Ukraine will all be looking for their first win of the tournament.
 
Pool Y is in a similar situation to that of Pool B. The two dominant teams from day one, Russia and Finland, will face each other while Great Britain, Ukraine and Sweden search for their first points of the tournament.
 
Pool X on the other side of the women’s competition has Germany and Denmark trying to reel in their first win when they come against each other. While Spain and Turkey will have to face each other and hope to keep their unbeaten record alive. We can’t guarantee that this game will have a winner but we can guarantee that at least one of these two teams will no longer be on maximum points by the end of day two.
 
 
RESULTS
Pool A
TURKEY 15 — 10 SLOVENIA
FINLAND 2 — 8 CZECH REPUPLIC
BELGIUM 7 — 4 SLOVENIA
FINLAND 5 — 5 TURKEY
Pool B
UKRAINE 2 — 6 SPAIN
LITHUANIA 11 — 3 SWEDEN
SWEDEN 1 — 6 SPAIN
LITHUANIA 11 — 4 GERMANY
Pool X
SPAIN 4 — 3 ISRAEL
DENMARK 3 — 7 TURKEY
GERMANY 1 — 8 ISRAEL
DENMARK 3 — 7 SPAIN
Pool Y
GREAT BRITAIN 3 — 9 FINLAND
RUSSIA 11 — 1 SWEDEN
SWEDEN 2 — 8 FINLAND
RUSSIA 9 — 2 UKRAINE