Skopje hosts a European championship: the M18 EHF Championship starts with eight national teams

While Belgrade holds the main European Championship for under-18s, Skopje gets its own tournament in the same age category. The M18 EHF Championship I 2026 is being played in the Macedonian capital with eight national teams split into two groups, while a parallel second-tier tournament runs in Telavi, Georgia, with six teams in one group. Every match from both tournaments goes out live on EHFTV. Hosting a continental competition is no small matter for a federation with our resources - it means an arena, organisation, referees, logistics and seven days in which European handball is looking at Skopje. Whether it gets used as anything more than a photo with a ribbon is an entirely separate question. Opportunities like this pass quietly here more often than they should.

Vardar returns to the Champions League after a three-year gap

Macedonian handball champion Vardar is back where it wants to be. After three years away, Vardar enters the elite Champions League, drawn into Group B alongside Melsungen, Nantes and Wisła Płock. They begin and end the group stage with matches against Germany's Melsungen. This is a season with an entirely new format - the competition expands from 16 to 24 teams split into six groups of four, with six rounds running from 9 September to 29 October, and the top two from each group advancing to the main round. More teams also means more room for clubs that were not part of this story before. The question for Vardar is not whether it will play - that is settled. The question is whether the club can financially sustain a full campaign at this level, because that is where we have stumbled before.

Eurofarm Pelister in Group G of the EHF European League

Bitola is once again a city with a European address. HC Eurofarm Pelister is in Group G of the EHF European League, where Germany's Gummersbach, Spain's Logroño La Rioja and Poland's Wybrzeże Gdańsk await. The group stage runs from 29 September to 2 December, with the top two from each of the eight groups going into the play-offs, joined there by the third and fourth-placed sides from the Champions League group stage. The group is not easy, but it is not settled for anyone either. Pelister this year put season tickets on sale and launched a new shirt, which means the club is seriously counting on a full arena. In a city with a handball crowd like Bitola's, that is not a marketing trick - it is a budget line.

Macedonia's cadets beaten by Sweden 33:29

Macedonia's boys' cadet national team ended its group stage at the 2026 European Championship in Serbia with a 33:29 defeat to Sweden. The Swedes led 18:16 at half time, meaning the second half was lost by a three-goal margin - not a catastrophe, but a difference in bench depth. Next come the play-offs for places 17 to 24. Group A contained Slovenia, France, Sweden and Macedonia, and of the 24 national teams at the start, only half go through to the main round. Among those eliminated is defending champion Sweden, which shows how punishing this format is. Losing to a Scandinavian school by four goals is no disgrace. The disgrace would be if in two years not one of these boys remains in the senior squad.

The regional handball league takes shape, while Ilinden and Gjorce Petrov build squads

Belgrade hosted the second session of the management board of the new Regional Handball League, where the key decisions were taken for the start of the first 2026/27 season. The project brings together clubs from Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia - an idea as old as the conversations about regional cooperation, which this time finally has a date. At home, the movement does not stop: HC Ilinden promoted Darko Janev to head coach with Dejan Pecakovski as his assistant, while the second team of Gjorce Petrov signed experienced goalscorer Marija Ancheva from Astibo. In Bitola, Eurofarm Pelister added a young Croatian right back, Diego Basanese. The regional league is a chance for Macedonian clubs to play stronger opponents more often without waiting for a European draw. If it works, it will be the best thing to happen to this sport here in years.