Soon it is time, the starting time gets closer every day, which is amazing! But there are some obstacles along the way, or is there?

Malmö Arena will be hosting one of the biggest events in the Nordic countries of all time. In this post I figured I'd look closer at some of the teams that will take part in tournament.

The Swedish Championship finals will be the dress rehearsal for the World Championships so it will be fun to see how this is handled.

I can imagine a gigantic event with fanzones, enormous commerical balloons in the air, VIP rooms with all manner of celebrities mingling with champagneglasses all the time. Then you want good handball too of course, but this time I want handball to really brag to the world about the fact that we've separated ourselves from the unprioritised sports and flex our muscles! This is our chance to get sponsors from other sports such as ice hockey, football and above all basketball and floorball so BRAG!

But let's leave the ”politics” and check out the sports in the form of the teams that have made it to our World Championship. Like always, there are many different teams from many different countries (like there always are in a World Championship) but what I am saying is that there are some surprises in our Championship, such as Bahrain.

Let's go through all the teams, I have to be honest and say I'm not an expert on all the countries but I have some information.

Africa: Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt
Asia: Japan, Korea, Bahrain
Europe: Croatia, Poland, Iceland, France, Sweden

Those are the teams that are ready to fight the battle for the World Championship title.

Africa
The teams from Africa are of course teams that we've all seen before, countries where handball now is one of the main sports, like Egypt where handball comes right after football. I can imagine that the same applies for Tunisia who has some stars in their team and many players in leagues abroad.
Egypt has had some good results in the World Championships before, where their best result I think is a fifth place (I can be wrong) but they have won the Youth 21 World Championships (beat Denmark in the final). Right now they are having a transitional phase between generations and they will probably have some players from the Youth 21 team that finished fifth in their home World Championship last year, which they would NOT have done if they had played somewhere other than Europe because they're aren't that good!

When it comes to Tunisia they have a very good team with a base of players from Montpellier, one of which plays as M6. His body is similar to ”Pepsi Cola” in HK Malmö, but he plays uglier and really beats up his opponents, definitely slightly annoying. He is a player who everyone hates to be up against but everyone wants on their team!

Other than having shirts in a very cool colour (mint green), at least they had that before, I think Algeria have the most offensive defense in the form of 3-3, of which the three offensives more or least are situated in the middle of the field chasing their opponents. Algeria has played like this since the dawn of time, it might not have given them that many successful results in any of the World Championships but it definitely has given them an edge compared to the other smaller handball nations in Africa. I would like to mention that they are outsiders and that they might be able to beat a higher ranked team if they were to spare their stars. I see this as a small chance, but still.

Asia:
If you look at the teams from the Asia group that are ready for the games you can see one very unusual participant and that is the small country of Bahrain.

It's exciting that they managed to qualify for the World Championship. I think it might be the same team that did well in the Youth 21 World Championship a few years ago when they had a coach from the Czech Republic, a very nice older gentleman by the way.

That team beat Denmark in the group and played with an awesome frenzy and a very varied defensive game but less physical. The physical part is over all what the African/Asian teams are lacking in, where they are a couple of miles behind us who's been doing this longer. But they make up for it with an amazing attitude and offensive frenzy!

Japan: this time they are without Olle Olssons ”wheat-buns and milk”-training and to tell you the truth I have no information about them, but I can imagine that they play offensively and like to shoot a lot and fast.

Korea: Whoa, these guys are fast! To my knowledge Korea doesn't have a league of their own so they all play in schools and different kinds of campuses, that's my understanding. I have seen these teams on different occasions when I have been away with national teams and it is difficult to tell the difference between the players because they all have the same hairdo and are about as tall/short! But they play a fast gme and have a very offensive defense. Korea really is fun to watch as long as they have the energy and will to play handball. If you're not completely focused in feet and mind they'll just shoot lightning fast and in all manner of ways. Don't miss them! They don't usually last all the way because they often have to battle teams that weight three times as much as them, but they can surprise! Hehehe!

I won't write about the European teams yet, but I promise to do it when it's approaching time for the tournament!

Regards, Zanotti
 

This is a guest blog entry from Johan Zanotti, head coach of LUGI, a team in the first Swedish leauge

 

•