The only thought of Ovidiu Mihăilă, one match before the Women's Handball World Championship

Ashley Davis22/11/2025

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Article by Maria Olteanu – Published Saturday, 22 November 2025, 20:19 / Updated Saturday, 22 November 2025 20:22

Romania's national women's handball team won the second match of the “Carpathian Trophy” on Saturday evening, score 37-30, in front of the Czech Republic, the penultimate friendly before leaving for the World Championship. After the match, the selector Ovidiu Mihăilă and Lorena Ostase drew the first conclusions, thinking about the debut at the final tournament.

The first half of the game in Bistrita was balanced, the two teams going head to head. The Czech Republic resisted well in the game, and Romania had defensive deficiencies, and the “tricolors” entered the booths with a single goal lead, score 16-15. In the second half, Mihăilă's girls broke free, and taught another strong offensive lesson, scoring 37 goals, two days after they had also scored 40 against Portugal.

After the match, Ovidiu Mihăilă analyzed what happened on the court and hopes that his girls finish this friendly tournament healthy and with joy and enthusiasm, before participating in the final tournament.

Romania is part of Group A at the World Championship, which is played in Rotterdam, along with Denmark, Japan and Croatia.

The reaction of Ovidiu Mihăilă, after the clear success with the Czech Republic

“I thank all those who came with these girls, this shows once again that the national team of Romania is loved wherever it goes, and here in Bistrița we found this love, as in all the cities where we played. Regarding the game, it was quite a strong emotional state in the first half, which led us to some segments in the match not to control, with a few misses.

After the break they regained their balance, found their calmness, their concentration and I think the second half was much better. There were definitely improvements compared to the last game, we still need to work on the defensive side, which gives us the opportunity to have balls and capitalize on them in attack. In the first half we had problems in defense, but in the second half they corrected themselves and had a progressive evolution.

Every game in this tournament has to help us keep the girls in good sporting shape, grow from game to game, improve things. I hope we finish this tour first of all with health and with the same enthusiasm, because we have a difficult period ahead of us with emotional and physical load”, said the Romanian coach, Ovidiu Mihăilă, quoted by timponline.ro.

I think that in the first half we didn't come in focused enough and we didn't have that clarity in attack, but also in defense. In the second half we came in as a team, showed more maturity and I'm glad we were able to win.

We have a lot of work to do, but from match to match progress can be seen. We have drawn some clearer lines both in attack and defense, I would like us to start more determined, to show that we are Romania and to be seen on the table right from the start

– Lorena Ostase, pivot Romania

Romania had 13 scorers in the success against the Czech Republic, the second since the Carpathian Trophy: Grozav (7), Ostase (6), Roșu (4), Kerekes (4), Elghaoui (3), Necula (3), Vasiliu (2), Boiciuc (2), Popa (2), Gogîrlă (1), Mihai (1), Laslo (1), Skrobic (1).