The Estonian men's national handball team will now almost certainly not qualify for the European Championship finals in Hungary and Slovakia next January, after losing 31-27 to Austria in its group 2 qualifying game in Tallinn Thursday evening.
The match, which took place at the Kalev Sports Hall, was the penultimate in the qualifiers and was a must-win for both teams to have a hope of qualifying for the main competition.
Estonia lies in fourth place and with two points, with one more game to go; the only way of rectifying the situation would be by beating group leaders Germany (10 points - two points are awarded for a victory - ed.), while Austria, now in third place with 4 points, would need to also defeat the second-placed team, Bosnia-Herzegovina (also 4 points). This would move Estonia up to third, but even then qualification would not be certain and would depend on how the third-placed teams in other groups fared in the last round.