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Norway playing their seventh European Championship finals in a row

The Norwegians won in the last five out of seven EC finals. In the last one two years ago, they lost to Montenegro. This is only the second finals for the Spaniards

Norway got the job done easily in the semifinals against Sweden (29-25). Since the very beginning, they imposed the rhythm and the result, definitely were the team with the more desire, more focus on the win. The defense was firm, Silje Solberg showed once again that she will be one of the candidates for the best goalie of this EC, Loke with 6 and Mork with 5 goals in the offense were leading the game. One of the happiest people because of this win was definitely the Norwegian coach Thorir Hergeirsson: 

- This was one of the best performances since I've been leading the team, and definitely our best game of the championship. The defense played great, and with Silje Solberg, we got another top class goalie. We played clever in the offense for most of the game, Nora Mork was a great "director", especially at the end of the game - Thorir said.

This will be the seventh EC finals for Norway, so the Norwegian press talk about this being a tradition for them. Norway might not have been great in the preparation period, but proved once again that they're the best when it comes to the fight for the title. One of the most experienced players on this tournament, the 30-year-old Linn Riegelhuth-Koren, who's been playing in the team since the World Championship 2003, said she enjoys her games in the big finals with the Norwegian national team:

- It's always great when we win and play the finals. We worked a lot this whole year for this success, we have players who are used to successes already, but also lots of younger players who learned about winning here - Riegelhuth-Koren said after the semifinals win.

That "winning" mentality could be Norway's biggest advantage in these finals, the mentality that the Sweden coach Helle Thomsen talked about: 

- The Spaniards say they'd be happy with the silver medal, and there's the difference. There's only gold for Norway. Norway have that winning culture, a mechanism with lots of resources on the court and outside of it that controls the whole thing.

Spain showed they belong to the European female handball top once again by getting placed to the EC finals. This confirmed their successes from 2011 and 2012 when they won the bronze, first in the World Championship, then on the London Olympics. The whole team played great semifinals against Montenegro, but one player stood out. The goalie Silvia Navarro was the key link of the win with 18 saves against the still current European championship. Jorge Duenas and his warriors got even for the defeat in the Olympics semifinals, and also secured their fourth medal and the second finals of the EC.

- We started the first half-time with a great game both in the offense and the defense. In the second part, we had some difficulties, it didn't look pretty, there was a real war, but in the end, we showed the mental strength this team have - Duenas said after the game. 

Spain won the war between two best defenses of this championship. Duenas was proud of his defense, especially when he saw the Montenegrin offense numbers, 0 goals for Milena Knežević, who dominated the EC 2012, and only 4 goals by their best scorer Katarin Bulatović.

Spain are thrilled with their placement to the finals, they far surpassed the goal set before the EC - getting placed up to the fifth place. But, far from it that they'll go out with a white flag today. Eight days ago, Spain played 40 minutes against Norway evenly (20-20), in the first game of the second phase of this competition. They lost focus, conceded a series of goals from counter attacks, and Silje Soldberg's effect on the Norwegian goal (16 saves), unlike Navarro who only had 9, influenced the final result of that match.

The primary reason I decided to play over on Martin on this margin that's been offered is definitely tied to the seven meter shots for Spain, and against Norway on this EC. The Spaniards won the most penalty shots convincingly, 39, which means 5.5 per game. Martin scored 24 out of 27. On the other hand, Norway got 5 penalty shots given per game. A deeper analysis of the last four duels between these two shows that Norway got 3, 6, 4, and 5 seven meter shots, and all those games were played on the big final tournaments of the EC, WC, and OG.
In total, Martin scored 42 goals on this EC, 6 per game. When it comes to four duels between Norway and Spain, Martin scored 5 against Norway on the WC 2011, didn't play on OG 2012 and WC 2013, and in the last game on the EC a week ago, she scored 6. Another detail worthy of attention is that Norway's goalie Silje Solberg conceded the most goals from the wing positions - 33, almost 5 per game.

At the end of the European Championship I'll take the tried and true bet with Nora Mork. Mork and Loke are on the short list for the MVP of the championship and the final will probably decide the winner. Mork scored 5 against Sweden in the semifinal after just 42 minutes with 10 attempts. In the second stage match a against Spain she scored just 3 of 9, but that was in just 23 minutes and her worst performance here. Last year in Serbia she's shown she knows how to beat Spain's defense, scoring 8 of 11 attempts as the best player of the match. I noticed one more thing: goalkeeper Navarro has a height issue that she compensates with great footwork. She has a very good save average from 6m and wing positions, but struggles against high shots, where Mork is one of the best 9m shooters. Over 5.5 is worth this stake.