Four winners, four days, and one goal between most of them

The U16 Regional Challenge Cup is under way. Twelve matches were played between Thursday and Sunday across four countries, and all four groups are led by a team with a perfect two wins from two — Slovakia in Group A, Croatia in Group B, Romania in Group C and Turkey in Group D. Three of those four were settled by the smallest possible margin.

The competition's first match was played in Prishtina on Thursday evening, and its first goal came after thirty-one seconds: Samanda Konjuhaj put Kosovo ahead against Bulgaria. Kosovo held on to win 26:23, the first result in the history of the competition.

Group A, in Rogla, produced the biggest surprise of the window. Slovenia opened with a commanding 42:23 against Bosnia & Herzegovina and looked the team to beat, but Slovakia won their first match 36:33 against the same opponent and then took the decisive meeting with the hosts on Sunday, 29:28. Slovenia finish second on goal difference, with Bosnia & Herzegovina third despite scoring 56 goals in two matches.

In Koprivnica, Croatia won both their matches by two goals and one — 22:20 against Montenegro on Friday and 27:26 against Serbia on Sunday. Between them, Montenegro and Serbia drew 25:25, the only draw of the window, which leaves the two of them level on a point, Serbia ahead on goal difference.

Romania were the one team to win without a fight. In Prishtina they beat Bulgaria 45:15 and Kosovo 37:19 — 82 goals scored and 34 conceded in two matches, by far the widest margin of the window.

Veroia was the opposite. Greece lost both their matches by a single goal, 24:25 to Turkey on Friday and 23:24 to North Macedonia on Sunday, and finish the window without a point despite a positive feel to both performances. Turkey added a 30:26 win over North Macedonia to top the group.

Lejla Hasić of Bosnia & Herzegovina is the leading scorer of the window with 21 goals in two matches, ahead of Csenge Alexandra Nagy of Slovakia on 18 and Cemre Demir of Turkey and Denisa Elena Filip of Romania on 17. The twelve matches produced 653 goals, an average of 54 a match; four of them were decided by a single goal and one ended level.

The competition now moves to the boys, whose first window is played on 5–8 November: Group A in Rogla, Group B hosted by Bosnia & Herzegovina, Group C in Podgorica and Group D in Kırklareli. The girls return on 27–29 November for the second window, hosted by Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and Bulgaria, with the Group D tournament in Skopje played on 11–13 December.

Every match of the window is on this website with its full play by play, team statistics and scorers, together with the group standings and the archive of results.

Official information site