Eight men’s teams from across the continent will play for promotion at the 2021 International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) Goalball European Championships C in Targu Mures, Romania, from 17-20 November.

The competition is the second of a trio of tournaments to feature in a busy end to the goalball calendar for 2021.

With the conclusion of the European Championships A in Samsun, Turkey on Friday (12 November), division C teams will be inspired to make the leap up. Previous teams to have competed at the entry level of men’s goalball in the region include Russia and Montenegro. Both sides were subsequently promoted to division A from division B and retained their places in the top flight in Samsun last week.

Krisztian Kovacs was Romania’s top scorer from 2019 in L’Aquila, Italy, and returns to the team for this year. The hosts will try for promotion hoping playing at home will give them the edge.

Sweden – the Beijing 2008 Paralympic bronze medallists – were one of the world’s top sides before they fell from group A to B and then C in quick succession. Fatmir Seremeti has been with them since their glory days, debuting in 2002, and returns to the squad as he nears his 20^th year.

The Italian team remain almost unchanged since their sixth place finish from two years ago. Emanuele Nicolo, Christian Mair, Dimitri Bernardi, Christian Belotti and Giuseppe Pratico will all line-up again.

Paris 2024 hosts France will hope to make a step towards catching their teammates in Targu Mures. The French women finished a respectable fifth place at Samsun 2021 to remain in division A.

Nabil Baich, Kada Boualia, Ambroise Adrien Dauden, Haris Neimarlija and Arnaud Ramos-Martins form the core of their returning players.

Veselin Kushnerenkov made it into the top 10 scorers for Bulgaria in 2019. Despite their 10^th place finish last time out, he can no doubt be relied upon again to highlight their attack.

Denmark’s seventh place finish from 2019 was secured by Caspar Gregersen, Mathias Jensen, Mads Laursen and Gustav Rasmussen who will return to the court in Romania.

The Dutch side of Ronald Klaver, Marcel van Beijinen, Frank van de Kreeke and Joost van de Kreeke will go for promotion for the Netherlands.

Serbia enter a team in an official IBSA Goalball competition for the first time in Targu Mures.

IBSA President, Sandro Di Girolamo, will attend the competition.

Results from the 2021 IBSA Goalball European Championships C will be available at the goalball.sport website.

Competition schedule