Vardar With a Squad for the Champions League, a Transfer Bombshell by Lake Ohrid

Vardar showed off its squad for the Champions League

HC Vardar has presented the squad it will field in the Champions League - the strongest club competition in European handball. For a club that once won this very league, a return to the elite always carries both weight and expectation; the fans have not forgotten what Vardar looks like when it plays with the best. The question now is not whether Vardar belongs there - history has already answered that - but how far this squad can measure up to the budgets of Veszprem, Kiel and Barcelona. Presenting the team is a nice day for photos. The real test begins when the first ball is thrown in the group stage, and not before.

A transfer bombshell by the lake: Taleski strengthens Ohrid

While the big clubs fill out their squads, a genuine transfer bombshell dropped by Lake Ohrid. Filip Taleski is the eighth official signing of HC Ohrid for the coming season. Eight signings are no accident - this is a club building seriously, not patching holes. For a city like Ohrid, which carries handball in its blood, a transfer like this is more than a sports story; it is a signal that the club has an ambition that goes beyond just filling out a roster. Whether all these signings will come together into a team that plays as a whole, rather than a sum of names, is something the court will show. But the interest and the building are there, and that is more than many clubs can say.

Pelister will carry Macedonia into the European League alone

Not all the news from the handball summer is joyful. HC Ohrid did not get a wild card, which means Eurofarm Pelister remains Macedonia's only representative in the EHF European League next season. That does not mean the other Macedonian clubs are left out of Europe - Macedonia will have four representatives in the EHF European Cup, including Alkaloid and HC Ohrid. But the difference in rank is clear: the European League is a rung above the European Cup, and there Pelister will defend the colours alone. For a country with a handball tradition like this, one club in the second-tier competition is a modest tally. The question is whether that is a ceiling or just a current state that work can change.

The young handball players lost to Croatia too at the Euros

From the young generation, the news so far is hard. Macedonia's handball hopefuls recorded a second defeat at the European Championship, this time outplayed by Croatia. Two defeats in a row at a competition like this hurt, but a youth tournament is exactly the place where you learn from defeat, not just from victory. Croatia is not an opponent to be ashamed of losing to - it is one of the strongest handball nations on the continent. What matters is how these boys withstand the gap in experience, and how many of them we will see a few years from now in the senior squads of Vardar, Pelister or abroad. A defeat at 20 is not the end; sometimes it is the best school.

Europe's young talents gathered in Romania

While our youngsters battle at their championship, a broader youth picture is being drawn in Romania. The M20 EHF EURO, the championship for players under 20, has gathered 24 national teams in a fight for a place in history. The event runs from July 8 to 11, with six groups of four teams each; the top two from each group advance. This is the stage where, a few years later, the names we watch in the Champions League are born. In parallel, in Zagreb the European Beach Handball Championship for the younger categories has just wrapped up, where the gold in the men's went to Spain and in the women's to Hungary. The Balkans, as usual, are where handball is played both on the court and on the sand - a tradition that rarely lets you down.