European Men's Handball Championship to tie the game at full-time, and two 10-minute extra periods were required before Sweden won 32–31 after Magnus Wislander scored the deciding goal. Three-time champions Sweden were the next to host the European Championship, in 2002. This was the first tournament with 16 teams, an expansion from 12 in the previous four instalments. The Swedes won their first seven matches, and had already qualified for the semi-finals when they lost 26–27 to Denmark, having led 17–11 at half time. In the other main round group, Iceland became the third Nordic team to qualify after defeating Germany in the final
Wales at the UEFA European Championship three years preceding the Finals, is used to determine which teams qualify for the Finals. The current format of the Finals involves 24 teams competing for the title, at venues within the host nation (or nations) over a period of about a month. Wales have only qualified once for a UEFA European Championship — the Euro 2016 tournament. They directly qualified after securing the second spot in their qualifying group, with one group match left. For the draw of the end stage that took place on 12 December 2015, they were seeded in Pot 4. In their first tournament, Wales