Article by Alexandru Tomuțiu – Published Wednesday, January 21, 2026 23:03 / Updated Wednesday, January 21, 2026 23:08
Valentin Ghionea (41 years old), former handball player with 5 Romanian championship titles, watched the European Men's Handball Championship closely and believes that Romania could be inspired by Portugal.
Valentin Ghionea claims that the big surprise of the European, Portugal's victory over Denmark, score 31-29it didn't surprise him that much. He is of the opinion that the Lusitanian model, with certain adjustments, could also be implemented in Romanian handball.
Valentin Ghionea is convinced: “Portugal could be a model for us”
“We don't need Danish coaches, I think we could have Romanian coaches to raise players, only they have to learn exactly what they have to do. The best example for me is Portugal. They trained their coaches first, sometime in 2014 they started with this program.
They were starting to no longer qualify for final tournaments. The club teams, Sporting, Benfica or Porto, didn't really exist anymore, Braga didn't really have results anymore. And then the change began in them. They trained the coaches, many courses with established coaches from Spain.
They started to learn, to apply. They created a group of coaches that later grew. They also had help in these academies, and now a player who finishes the juniors moves very naturally to the seniors. With minutes played in the team he goes to.
You see, players are constantly emerging. It is not an accident, it is the product of what they have been working on for many years. They achieved an extraordinary result at the World Youth Championship with the generation of Frade, then Salvador. They promoted all of them and started doing well. The Costa brothers appeared and see what level their national team has reached, uniting these generations.
It was no accident that Portugal beat Denmark. I really expected him to do well last night because I know what he plays.
It could be a model for us, we don't have to copy it one hundred percent, we have to adapt to what is happening in Romanian handball and I think we can think about a reconstruction, about creating our own model.
Why not?, in a few years we can go up step by step. We don't issue any medal claims, but we can climb step by step. Maybe in the next championship we will manage a point, in the other one a victory with a big team and look like that we go up. Maybe in a few years we'll manage to be up there”, said Valentin Ghionea, on the Handball GSP show.
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Portugal won the Euro 2026 preliminary group B and advanced with two points in the main one
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The best performance in the history of the national team was achieved in 2025, a semifinal of the World Championship
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Portugal has a coach, Paulo Pereira, who is also the coach of Dinamo
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Portugal defeated Romania, score 40-34, in the Euro 2026 group.
Of course I'm happy. It's a big victory for us, for Portugal, for home sport. It gives us a sense of pride, we didn't find any mistakes in the game against Denmark. But I didn't achieve anything. We must continue on the same path. We take everything step by step, we have bold goals. We want to beat our best performance, 6th place in 2020. It's not easy to reach the top 5 European nations!
– Paulo Pereira, after the victory against Denmark
In his career, Valentin Ghionea played for HC Minaur Baia Mare, Dinamo Bucharest, Pick Szeged, Reșita, U Cluj, HCM Constanța, Wisla Plock, Sporting, CS Dinamo and CSA Steaua. Ghionea has 134 matches in the shirt of the Romanian national team.
