From the 16th until the 21th of July, it is time for the XV. U-19 Women’s European Championship, held in Staranzo, Italy.

With an amount of 17 teams, the record of participating teams has been broken. The 17 teams will be divided into four different groups for the Round-Robin.

We may welcome Ireland and Bulgaria for the very first time. It shows a great development of European softball with more countries getting teams together for a European Championship. After being out since 2014, we may welcome back the Netherlands, Croatia, and Ukraine.

It’s tough to say which team will be expected to dominate this Championship. Will Great Britain be able to maintain their title or will we see the Czech Republic, the Netherlands or Italy back again taking the first place? Also Germany could be the unexpected surprise since they improved their spot on the ranking again during the last two tournaments (9th in 2014 and 4th in 2016) after becoming second in 2010 and 2012.  

If it's not fun enough to end up in the top three in general, there's one more thing that's maybe even more exciting; the top three teams will qualify themselves for the Junior Women's World Championship next year from the 11th until the 17th of August in Irvine, California (USA). 

You can follow the games via the following links:

play-by-play, schedule, results:  HERE

Facebook:  HERE

Live-streaming of all the games from the main field (Ronchi) will be available at baseballsoftball.tv

- Romy Marinus -
/cover photo by Fabio Cecchin/