Skopje Hosts a European Championship, Pelister Drawn With Gummersbach: A Week When Macedonian Handball Got Both a Stage and a Measurement

Skopje hosts a European Championship: eight teams start on Monday

While everyone is looking towards Belgrade, Skopje is getting a tournament of its own. The men's under-18 European Championship, division one, starts on Monday with eight national teams split into two groups, and the final is set for Sunday. In parallel, in Telavi, Georgia, the second division is being played with six teams in a round-robin. Every match goes out live on EHFTV. Hosting competitions is the only currency a small handball federation can accumulate without a budget in the millions - and Macedonia is using it. The question is whether, after the tournament, anyone will ask what is left of it beyond photographs.

Macedonia three times without a win in Belgrade: 29-33 to Sweden

The under-18 handball team lost its third match at the European Championship in Belgrade as well. Against Sweden, in a game directly deciding third place in Group A, the final score was 29-33. The opening says it all: the opposition started with three straight goals and Macedonia found no answer. Sweden led by as much as six goals at points, while our side used a four-goal run before the break to cut the deficit to two, 16-18. The second half brought the same picture. With three defeats in as many games, Goran Kuzmanovski's squad finished the group in last place and now plays for placings from 17th to 24th. That is no catastrophe for an under-18 generation - it is an accurate measure of where we stand when facing systems that work with children ten years ahead of time.

Pelister in Group G with Gummersbach: the European League has its new schedule

The draw for the EHF European League placed 32 clubs into eight groups of four. Eurofarm Pelister is in Group G alongside Gummersbach, La Rioja and PGE Wybrzeże Gdańsk. The group stage runs over six rounds, from 29 September to 2 December, and the top two from each group advance to the play-offs - where the third and fourth-placed teams from the Champions League group stage await. The side from Bitola faces the weight of a German opponent in the group, but they also have a Champions League past that entitles them not to turn up as tourists. It is not an easy group. Nor is it an impossible one.

Bassanese signs four years in Bitola: "There are excellent players here"

Croatian right back Diego Bassanese, a Croatia youth international, has signed a four-year contract with Eurofarm Pelister. Before Bitola he played for Umag and returned from the Mediterranean Games with a medal alongside the youth national team. "The team is great. I think it will be a good and successful season... there are excellent players here, internationals, it will be a big challenge," Bassanese says. The club has opened this transfer window wide: arriving are Aleksa Kolaković, Martin Serafimov, Miha Kotar, Omer Mehmedović, Edvin Dželetović, Malik Tatar and Nenad Belistojanoski, while departing are Osama Hosny, Bogdan Radivojević, Ilija Abutović, Domen Tajnik and Dejan Manaskov. With Lino Červar on the bench, the regional league starts on 23 August, with Alkaloid, Partizan, Lovćen and Dubočica in the second group. Almost half the squad is new - that either brings freshness, or three months of looking for a common language.

A new club in Ilinden, and Pecakovski returns to handball via the bench

Dejan Pecakovski will be assistant coach at the newly formed RK Ilinden. As a player he wore the shirts of Pelister, Metalurg, Vardar, Zomimak, Eurofarm Rabotnik, Prolet and Club Africain of Tunisia, captained the youth national team at the 2007 World Championship and was part of the senior squad at the 2014 European Championship in Denmark. He will assist head coach Darko Janev. The club, officially founded a few days ago, immediately enters the First Macedonian Handball League and is forming a youth team in parallel. Behind the project stand Goce Georgievski, Žarko Peševski, David Savrevski, Mario Tankovski and Darko Gjorgjević, with support from the municipality of Ilinden. A new club in a country where clubs shut down more often than they are founded is news in itself. Whether it survives a second season will be shown by the till, not by the press release.