Romania – Netherlands

Romania and Netherlands will square off on Sunday in the third place playoff of the 2018 European Women`s Handball Championship, held in France.

Romania had a great start in the competition, winning all three games in the Preliminary round, including a spectacular 31-23 victory over Norway. However, things did not continue on the same note. Romania was rather poor in the main round, barely qualifying via goal difference after losing to Netherlands (by 5) to Hungary (by 2) and barely beating Spain (by 2). What`s worse, the Romanians lost their best player, Cristina Neagu, in the final game of the main round. As such, they had little hopes of beating Russia in the semifinals, and indeed Romania lost 22-28.

Netherlands was excellent in the group stages, winning a total of 7 out of 8 games in the Preliminary round and Main round – with the only loss coming at the hands of Norway, which was on absolute fire at that point. Unfortunately for the Dutch, France was too strong in the semifinals, winning 27-21. Netherlands will now hope to repeat the result they had against Romania earlier in the competition, and claim the bronze medals.

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The main talking point here is of course the absence of Cristina Neagu, who will miss the game after rupturing her ACL in the final minutes of the Main Round.

Neagu, arguably the best player in the world and one of the best the game has ever seen, is the engine of this Romanian team. Everything goes through her, and without her Romania is just another ordinary side – as it was clearly seen in the semifinals, where Russia cruised to a 28-22 victory.

It is unlikely that Romania can compete at this level without Neagu because, as it is the case with such players, their absence means even more for a team than simply losing that player`s individual quality.

Like it is the case with players like LeBron James or Cristiano Ronaldo, their teams built their entire game around them, so when they are not on the pitch, teams have to reshuffle everything they do. That is a monumental task, virtually impossible to achieve in a short period of time. And Romania only had a few days to change up all their plays and their entire gameplan.

With morale already low, the Romanians will probably feel even more hopeless considering that WITH Neagu they lost pretty badly against Netherlands earlier in the competition. In fact, the players have given pretty fatalistic statements ahead of the clash, along the lines of “it`s hard without Neagu, we`ll try to do our best, it was a good tournament, if we lose we lose”.

While in sports it`s always possible for a team to rally and produce an unlikely performance (Romania still has a decent team), logic dictates this should be an easy win for Netherlands. The Dutch have been the better team in this tournament anyway, they already beat Romania handily in the Main Round and with the Romanians missing the best player in the world, Netherlands should have this on lock.

My tip will be Netherlands to cover the -2,5 handicap. Odds are dropping big time on this bet, but I`d probably take any odds 1.65 or higher (or the -3.0 asian). Prediction: Romania – Netherlands 22 – 28.

Pick: Netherlands -2,5
Odds: 1.80 @ William Hill
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 6.40
Event date: 16 December