Busan International Friendly Tournament: USA Women to take on 3 club teams and 2 national team sides.
The USA Women are in Busan, South Korea where they are 1 of 6 teams participating in an International Friendly Tournament. Korean club teams are sponsored by companies and the Busan Infrastructure Corporation (BISCO) sponsors a club team that plays in Korea’s top league. Other teams participating including ERD HC from Hungary, EH Aalborg from Denmark and the national teams from Taiwan and Australia.
Based on pedigree ERD and hosts BISCO should be the two top teams. ERD HC placed 3rd in Hungary’s top league and qualified for the EHF Cup (Europe’s 2nd level competition below the Champions League). EH Aalborg finished 7th last season in Denmark’s 2nd Division and should be a notch below those 2 teams. As these clubs are professional or semi-professional they will likely present stiff competition for the U.S.
The two other national teams participating, Taiwan and Australia, however, should be teams the U.S. can match up with as neither side has performed particularly well recently in International competition. Taiwan’s most recent Asian Championships appearance was in 2012 where they placed 7th out of 12 participants. I’m not very familiar with Taiwan handball and it’s not clear as to why they haven’t participated since then.
Australia has been the dominant team in Oceania and regularly qualified for the World Championships until their automatic slot was eliminated in 2015. That being said, they never won a match at the World Championships and often lost the 23rd place match to the weakest Pan American side participating.
The tournament is scheduled to take place over 5 days and will be a full round robin with 3 matches played daily.
USA Match Schedule (Korea is 13 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time)
Saturday, 19 Aug 1700 (Local) / 0400 ET USA vs Busan BISCO (South Korea)
Sunday, 20 Aug 1500 (Local) / 0200 ET USA vs ERD HC (Hungary)
Monday, 21 Aug 1300 (Local) / 0001 ET USA vs EH Aalborg (Denmark)
Tuesday, 22 Aug 1300 (Local) / 0001 ET USA vs Australia
Wednesday, 23 Aug 1400 (Local) / 0100 ET USA vs Taiwan