European Handball Championship in Austria

The French are absolute rulers

The MVP was the left back of Czech Republic Filip Jicha who is also the best scorer with 53 goals. The ideal team also has the goalkeeper Slawomir Szmal (Poland), the left wing Manuel Strlek (Croatia), center back Nikola Karabatić (France), right back Olafur Stefansson (Iceland), right wing Luc Abalo (France) and center forward Igor Vori (Croatia)


By RADOMIR ĐUROVIĆ (radomir.djurovic@wavemagazine.net)
from Belgrade, SERBIA
Translation: MILENA OTAŠEVIĆ


There is no doubt that France is currently the best handball nation in the world. After the titles at the Olympic games in Beijing (2008) and World Championship in Croatia (2009) the French have become the European champions in Austria. No other national team has managed it ever before to be the best at all three competitions at the same time.

The same as last year the gold medal battle was between France and Croatia and "the tricolors" were again better. This is the second European gold for France (after Switzerland 2006) and they also won one bronze medal (2008 Norway). The third place went to the Olympic vice-champion Iceland who beat Poland in the match for the "bronze". These teams have qualified themselves for the World Championship which will be held next year in Sweden. One of the best goalkeepers in the world Thierry Omeyer said after the finals: "With these three titles we made it into history. I still can't realize what we have done. This is simply amazing."

The coach Claude Onesta under whose leadership France won six medals since 2003 says:

- The competition was extremely strong because all the teams were excellent. We had some problems at the beginning but from one game to another we played better and better. In the finals we had more strength than Croatia.

This was the last competition for Lino Cervar who was on Croatian bench since 2002. Cervar was the creator of the renaissance in Croatian handball because under his leadership the team won five medals, two of which were gold (World Championship in 2003 in Portugal and Olympic games 2004 in Athens). As a reason for his resignation he stated the public's distrust in his team.

The MVP was the left back of Czech Republic Filip Jicha who is also the best scorer with 53 goals. The ideal team also has the goalkeeper Slawomir Szmal (Poland), the left wing Manuel Strlek (Croatia), center back Nikola Karabatic (France), right back Olafur Stefansson (Iceland), right wing Luc Abalo (France) and center forward Igor Vori (Croatia).

Sixteen teams participated in the competition and there were only two debutants: Austria and Serbia who competed for the first time under that name. Serbia's premier went badly because the players returned home after the first round of competition with only one point won. The same destiny went for Sweden, Ukraine and Hungary. Sweden and Serbia were the most unpleasant surprises. The Swedish team has won four gold medals on European championships so far and they have been making a team for several years now. Since 2002 they have been waiting for a medal and last year they were 7th in the world.

After winning the 8th place in the world Serbia came to Austria with great ambitions and a new coach Sead Hasenefendić. Optimism was increased by a win against France in the preparation period. Still, the opposite happened. Reasons for failure are many but the biggest ones are in Serbia.

One can make a national team worthy of fighting for a medal out of Serbian players who play for other national teams. Former Yugoslav and Serbo-Montenegrian national team members who play under another flag are Arpad Šterbik (Spain), Danijel Šarić and Nebojša Golić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Nenad Puljezević, Milorad Krivokapić and Nikola Eklemović (Hungary). No one was held responsible for this either. The same thing occurs in women's handball but the only difference is that the situation is much worse.

The qualifications for the World Championship are in June and Serbia meets with an excellent team of Czech Republic. The competition in Sweden will provide an excellent opportunity to get a ticket for the 2012 Olympic Games in London or at least for the qualifications.


(Published: 09.02.2010.)