Posts by Olivia White25

It’s like the Norwegians just completely transformed into Americans... you can really feel the spirit of Babicev hanging around Bercy

The French just go about it like professionals... They play with this insane energy, almost like they’ve never won a single gold medal in their lives...

It’s honestly hard to find any other team in any major American team sport that shows this kind of absolute dominance compared to how the French dominate handball... It's just pure beauty to watch

It’s honestly wild how subtly Saracevic keeps taking jabs at Smith throughout the entire game 😁 😁

The Norwegians dropped 22 goals in just 45 minutes, while we managed 60... We really gave it everything we had

I'm really hoping the French side gives those Norwegians a good thrashing today. If Norway pulls this off, people are going to start acting like we almost knocked out the reigning World Cup champs or something...

I mean, Serdarušić is basically taking over the national team in a few weeks and he’s gonna lead us straight to the gold next year 😁

What an impossible scenario to imagine, but hey, it’s nice to at least dream it up 😁

We’ll just have to wait a year and see what happens when we’re playing on home soil...
At that point, you can't use being tired or having injuries as an excuse. Ever since we landed the hosting gig, everyone's been talking about building a roster specifically to go out and grab the gold in 2018. I'm honestly just curious to see which powerhouse ends up knocking us out in the semifinals.

It’s not really about Duvnjak. That was more an issue with Balic, but honestly, the guy was a pure genius—what can you even say?

People put way too much pressure on Duvnjak, and then he feels like he has to carry the entire weight of the world on his shoulders. He tries to force it, but it just doesn't work out. I mean, look at yesterday—he was only 3/13...

Every single game, Duvnjak looks like he’s about to have a heart attack. It’s like we’ve been hearing about his fatigue for dozens of tournaments in a row now, and I just don't get what the deal is with his conditioning. It’s not like he’s the only handball player out there grinding 60 minutes for both his club and the national team... but man, we really do rely on him when he's on his game. When he isn't, forcing him onto the court backfires; he ends up becoming a bit of a liability instead of an asset.

At the end of the day, it’s honestly a bit bummer to see how many national teams have clearly leveled up past us... you look at France, Denmark (if we aren't being too hard on the Canadians), Norway, Sweden, Germany...

We're kind of hovering in the same orbit as the Spanish, just sort of coasting on what we used to be back in the day...
Man, there's nothing more frustrating than playing a game where you're holding a 3-4 point lead, yet you can't shake this nagging feeling that your opponent is actually outclassing you—and then, sure enough, they come out and take it from you in the end.

Peter Thompson4 said:I honestly think my colleague was being sarcastic here. We’ve already cycled through three different young rosters, and every single year, there's some new group of players who are supposedly already the "new generation."

Exactly... Since 2010, we've been working on refreshing this squad, and it feels like it's never-ending. People keep saying this specific group represents the peak of our success in the Euro tournament, but I can already see the narrative starting around next December. They'll probably claim the Euro was just perfect practice for the 2020 Olympics, where we're supposedly going to hunt for gold... how long does this go on?

Ever since we started focusing on "youth," the German teams have hit rock bottom and somehow managed to become European champions... enough said for those who get it. 😁

And don't even get me started on how they claimed a year ago that a brand new American roster had been built—a total revolution for the national team—only to be hearing the exact same story again just twelve months later. 😁

So, now comes the part where they start freshening up the roster for next year's Euro

Babica's pre-game comments before the matchup against Canada

"We’re fast, they’re strong"

It feels like Babica might be using a totally different dictionary for the word "fast," because I don't think we've ever played this sluggishly in our lives.

Strlek is wrapping up the tournament with his worst performance yet; the wings have basically vanished, there's zero pace in the attack, and honestly, it felt like we could have just brought in Kozin to act as a third pivot instead. It was like watching Kopljar's ghost haunting Stepenica—just constant attempts to drive through the line, turnovers everywhere, and the ball movement was so stagnant it was painful. It got so bad that I’m actually looking forward to seeing Kopljar back on the national team because, well, he's the lesser of two evils right now. As for Mandalinic, he's been a disaster throughout this whole championship. I have no idea what's going wrong; the guy has a literal cannon in his hand, but I haven't seen a left back struggle this much in ages...

Zlatko Horvat played an incredible tournament, as per usual. It’s such a shame about that penalty shot, but whatever, we really should have broken their spirit much earlier than this...

Mamić, man... He showed Stepenica and Mandalinic how it's actually done...

Yeah, true enough... but whether they got an invite or not, they absolutely earned their spot in the finals. Honestly, they probably wouldn't even be there if the Danes had made it through... I mean, the French are going to steamroll them, but hey, what can you do? Regardless of how they play handball, I don't see them staying relevant on the "big stage" for very long, despite all the hype everyone keeps talking about.

Gregory Ramos3 said:Euro: Denmark, Mexico, USA
UN: France, Sweden, USA
World Cup: Denmark, Spain, USA

🙂

Bronca is the absolute GOAT 😁

Edward Allen36 said:Victor Tomas

If you ask me, he’s nothing out of the ordinary... I mean, sure, he’s a solid player, but he’s just not quite at that level where he cracks my top seven...

Edward Allen36 said:Duvnjak could make the cut, and honestly, he probably should. He played a solid tournament. As for Čupić, I don't think he really earned his spot; there are just better right wingers out there during this championship

Like, who specifically??! Aside from Lindberg, obviously..

dustypanther6 said:I mean, some guy like Lindberg probably wouldn't see eye to eye with that idea either.

honestly, besides him and Čupić, I can't really think of anyone else who could actually pull this off...

casualskipper8 said:Congrats on taking third! We played the whole tournament pretty well, but man, we just couldn't quite clinch it at the very end. I’m honestly stumped why we keep hitting a wall in the semifinals lately. Is it a conditioning thing, or is it more like a mental block?

If it's possible, we really ought to pace ourselves better so we actually enter the final rounds feeling fit. It's funny because we have enough talent to field three different national teams, yet somehow we always end up stuck with just two. It used to be that John Doe was the absolute alpha and omega—when he was on the court, the US was unstoppable. Now, everything hinges on John Doe, and when he wasn't ready against the Americans, we just fell apart.

All in all, we were missing a massive chunk of our roster during this championship, whether due to bad luck with injuries or just stubbornness regarding certain veteran call-ups.

Between John Doe, John Doe, John Doe, John Doe, and then finally having John Doe and John Doe sidelined by injuries... man, what a squad we could have had for the gold.

You can't walk in feeling "fit" if you're treating the quarterfinals like they're the championship game and acting like there isn't a medal match waiting right after. It's like they don't realize a quarterfinal win doesn't mean much if you're gassed for the finals—even if it's against a team like France. It happened last year when those underdogs from Mexico knocked us out, it happened again this year... and it'll happen again the moment we face the Americans once more.

So, after snagging third place at the Olympics and the World Championships, they’re actually aiming for the Round of 16 at the World Cup... Honestly, Goluža can just take those ridiculous goals and shove them. It's just nonsense at this point.

What’s the big plan for next year then? Just hoping to win the group stage?

Susan Miller79 said:Kljajić, is that you? Come on, walk us through your master plan for hitting the jackpot.

...while a white van just sits there watching him from right in front of the building...